Grande & Secret Order of Obituary Cocktail

One of our editors was in New Orleans and photographed a banner for the Grande & Secret Order of Obituary Cocktail. Searching for more information on the Grande & Secret Order of Obituary Cocktail, I found two recipes on the internet.
Atlanta has two bar/restaurants dear to our profession, one is named Graveyard and the other is Six Feet Under, across from the historic Oakland Cemetery. Check them out next time you're in Atlanta and order the Obituary Cocktail. If the bartender doesn't know how to make it, here are the two recipes:

Adapted from Obituary Cocktail: The Great Saloons of New Orleans, by Kerri McCaffety.

Around the beginning of the twentieth century, America invented the ultimate cocktail the martini. Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop made a special version with an added splash of absinthe and called it the Obituary Cocktail.

• 4 jiggers dry gin
• 1/2 jigger dry vermouth
• 1/2 jigger Pernod (a legal absinthe substitute)

Chill in a shaker and strain.

Here's another version:

Obituary Cocktail

• 2 ounces gin
• 1/4 ounce dry vermouth
• 1/4 ounce pastis

Stir with ice. Strain into a cocktail glass.

Bottoms up.
Kay Powell
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Obituaries Editor

Twilight Zone moment

Wally Guenther, my partner-in-grim at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio, wrote an obituary that appeared in today's (Oct. 26, 2006) paper for Nikki Kukwa, a remarkable 22-year-old Kent State University aviation student who died of leukemia.

Even the time of her death was remarkable. And somewhat eerie.

Wally writes: "Her favorite time of the day was 11:11 a.m.," an uncle, Rick Kukwa, of Philadelphia, said. "We don't know why, but when she saw the time on the clock she would always say, 'Make a wish.' "

Nikki Kukwa died at 11:11 a.m. Monday, her family said.

Please cue the "Twilight Zone" theme.

Engraved on headstone in Montreal

Not really obituary-related, but funny and sort of on-topic.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/signs/headstone.asp

"Died Doing What He Loved"

Why do (some) obit writers do that?? It's so aggravating.
I agree with Kathy Kemp of the Birmingham (Ala.) News ... (no link available, posted on alt.obits)
and Trevor Brown, former journalism dean, Indiana University (posted 9/25 on Romenesko's Web site)

Living Doing What You Love Is The Best
FROM: The Birmingham (Alabama) News ~ By Kathy Kemp
I don't know if you've noticed this, but often, when a person dies unexpectedly - especially while mountain climbing, skydiving or flying solo over the Bermuda triangle - we're told he "died doing what he loved."
Latest example: Steve Irwin, Australia's intrepid and beloved crocodile hunter, killed Monday when a stingray pierced his heart while Irwin filmed a TV segment in the Great Barrier Reef. Immediately, news organizations reported Irwin had "died doing what he loved."
They were quoting Irwin's manager, John Stainton, who added that Irwin "left this world in a happy and peaceful state of mind."
Stainton meant well, of course. But let's take a moment to think about this. Irwin spoke often of his love of family, of conservation and of reptiles and sea creatures. He never mentioned a desire to yank a stingray's barb from his chest and then gasp a final breath.
Go to Google and type in "died doing what he loved" and you'll get 1,290,000 responses (type in "doing what she loved" and you'll net 423 more). Those words are spoken about soldiers killed in Iraq and grandfathers who dropped dead of heart attacks while playing baseball with the kids.
The news media sometimes promote the cliché. A reporter for The Register Guard in Eugene, Ore., didn't rely on friends or family to speak the dreaded words: "Jane Vanneman Higdon died doing what she loved," declares the first sentence on a story in June detailing how Higdon had fallen off her bike and been hit by a truck.
Friends told the reporter that Higdon, 47, loved her husband, endurance sports and her job as a nurse. None mentioned that she looked forward to being crushed by a loaded logging truck.
When extreme skier Douglas Coombs was killed in May in a skiing accident, NPR commentator Alex Markels started a tribute to Coombs by saying, "There's probably no obituary more admiring of a man than to say that he died doing what he loved."
I don't know of any research confirming that dying happy equals dying well, but lots of people clearly want to believe it. In Tennessee just last week, 25-year-old Kristin Reese, a member of a women's football team, died in a motorcycle accident. Her coach, Steve Lewis, couldn't help himself. "She died doing what she loved. I hope I can die doing what I love, and I hope everybody else can too," he said.
Fewer of us seem content anymore just to say a prayer and mourn the dead. We live in exciting times that require exciting endings. Perhaps human nature dictates our search for meaning in tragedy, whether it involves a famous adventurer, an astronaut or a friend's ill mother. We don't want to think that the dead might have suffered or perhaps wished, in those final moments, to celebrate another birthday, to drive the kids to school tomorrow or to hunt for exotic creatures in another ocean on another day.
The truth is, if we're lucky, we live doing what we love. If we're blessed, our lives have meaning that transcends how we die.
And if you ask me, that's enough.

----and -------

From: Trevor Brown, Former journalism dean, Indiana University
After yanking a limb driven into the lawn like a javelin and then heaving it into the neighbor's yard, I wondered again at Steve Irwin's death. "He left this world in a peaceful and happy state of mind," a fellow snorkeler said, "doing what he loved best." I doubt that, in the moments after the stingray's barb pierced his heart, Irwin was in a peaceful and happy state of mind. But I'm sick of the unctuous bromide that so-and-so died doing what he loved best.It could happen that a plunging limb from the trees at the bottom of our garden will take me out while I'm mowing. Yes, I enjoy mucking about on my John Deere LT133. But, please, please, I've told my wife and children, no line in my obituary, "He died doing what he loved best." I've implored them to edit an obituary like this:
Trevor Brown, 69, died Monday in his home. His wife, Charlene, found him slumped over on a couch in the living room, a victim, apparently, of a heart attack while doing the New York Times crossword. Preliminary speculation is that he was entering an answer to 9-across -- "One making a point at church?" -- when he succumbed. He had written only "E-L" to the five-letter answer and still clutched his favorite pencil, a 0.7 Pentel with a large eraser. Will Shortz, editor of the New York Times crossword, said, "I met Trevor Brown only once during a visit some years ago to Indiana University and did not learn that he was a crossword fan until after his death. Then I was surprised to discover that a faculty member at my alma mater was rarely able to get beyond Monday's crossword, the least challenging of the week's puzzles, until I was told he was a dean. It must be of great comfort to the family that Dean Brown died doing what he loved best. By the way, the answer to 9-across in this Monday's puzzle was SPIRE."Coaches like you should urge obit writers to resist the quote of comfort from well-meaning family and friends. I say, go for "The horror! The horror!"

How they lived their 100-plus years

Nothing is sadder than an obit for a centenarian, which says little more than "This person lived a really long time."

I recently wrote an obit that ran in The Plain Dealer on Aug. 16, 2006, for Florence Homan, who had been the oldest person in Ohio. Age 112. A lot of years, and yet there was little more for me to say about her.

She had outlived her husband. She had no children. The "next of kin," who handled her funeral arrangements, was a stepsomething-in-law of a relative of her husband's a few times removed.

The only story about her that I could find in our archives was written a few months earlier when the previous oldest-person-in-Ohio died. It was more about centenarians in general than it was about Florence in particular.

I put together a short obit that said she:
(1)was born Florence Wilker on Nov. 18, 1893, in Middleburg Township, more than 30 years before the area was incorporated as the village of Middleburg Heights;
(2)grew up on a farm;
(3)had an 8th-grade education;
(4)worked for Higbee's department store as a seamstress for more than 50 years;
(5)married a railroad worker, who was 10 years her junior, in 1941;
(6)lived most of her life in Cleveland in a house that was torn down to make way for the construction of an interstate highway;
(7)moved to the suburbs;
(8)was widowed in 1988;
(9)and moved into a nursing home at age 105.

That's actually a lot more than I could dig up about other centenarians, who have died on my watch. I have to believe there was much more to tell about Florence. I just couldn't find people or documentation that could help me get it together on deadline.

Bryan Marquard's obit for artist Polly Thayer Starr, which ran in the Sept. 3, 2006, edition of the Boston Globe shows a centenarian, who lived a fascinating 101 years.

Polly had children and friends with sundry details about her New England ancestry, which included Ralph Waldo Emerson and a host of Episcopalian ministers, her art training and career, marriage and motherhood.

And the Smithsonian Institution had interviewed her 11 years before her death.

Bryan was able to gather a considerable amount of information about this centenarian. And he selected terrific facts and quotes that made this a delightful obit to read.

He included details about her work - portraits that range from literal to ethereal; to landscapes illuminating the spirit of a milieu; to a series of paintings capturing the life span of a thistle - that illustrate the depth of her art.

And this revealing quote from Polly's Smithsonian interview: "I was pretty gun-shy of marriage when it would mean giving up painting. . . . It took a long time to make up my mind."

Here are more gems:

"You never achieve what you want," she told a friend late in life, "but you're always getting nearer to the essence . . . and that's a search that is all important."

From one of her daughters: "She could pat bumblebees. While he was on the flower, she would take her finger and stroke his fur and his wings would buzz like mad, and he wouldn't fly away until she stopped. It always seemed to me the equivalent of a cat's purr."

She became a Quaker and ventured away from home, seeking new inspiration. She attended wrestling matches and was invited into an operating room to watch surgery, telling a friend that "to see the living organs pushing up uncovered out of a woman's body . . . I forgot everything in the wonder of it."

Then, in her 70s, she developed glaucoma and macular degeneration. Before completely losing her sight, her final works in her late 80s were drawings of a thistle and a diaphanous self-portrait that seemed to place her both in this world and the next.

Bryan ended the story with this: The pull of creativity, she told the Smithsonian, never ceases. "It's the Hound of Heaven," she said with a chuckle. "It's always after you."

Please share your favorite centenarian-obit stories and tips on how to gather info about the dearly departed, whose family and friends are long departed.

Eugene Crawford, physiology/biophysics professor, boxing champ

I love Gerry Hostetler's "It's a Matter of Life" column that runs in the Charlotte Observer.

In her Aug. 30, 2006, column about the late Eugene Carson "Gene" Crawford Jr., a retired University of Kentucky physiology and biophysics professor and Golden Gloves Hall of Fame boxer, Gerry chooses a fascinating subject and uses quotes that make you want to smile.

She writes: Gene was well-known in the Carolinas for his boxing ability, but even better known nationally for his physiological research. . . His academic career is stellar.

Crawford studied with eminent physiologist Knut Schmidt-Nielsen at Duke University.

"He spoke glowingly of going to Australia with Schmidt-Nielsen and studying camels and ostriches," said son-in-law Tracy Campbell.

Early in the piece, Gerry quotes Carl Holt, a Golden Gloves HOF board member: "Looking at him, you didn't think he was a boxer, but he was a good little ol' fighter."

She gives a detailed record of Crawford's impressive (30 wins, 1 draw, four losses) but brief (1949-1952) boxing career. More than half of his wins were by knockout.

Gene joined the Navy and promptly fought and defeated the brigade champion. After his discharge, he fought four professional fights and won them. He was invited to try out for the 1952 U.S. Olympic trials, but did not accept. He was about to marry sweetheart Helen Suggs, whom he spotted at a public park in Durham.

Then comes this nifty quote from Crawford's sister: "He was about 18 and she was ... very pretty."


Later in life, Crawford's wife developed Pick's disease, which cost her the ability to speak. When Gene began losing his sight, folks asked how they would manage life together. "I will take care of Helen and Helen will be my eyes," he answered.

And so she was, until her death five years ago. And Gene was a good little ol' fighter, right up to the end.

Excellent ending, Gerry!

Obit for 2-year-old, platform for discussing palliative care for babies

In her Aug. 29, 2006, Lifelines column in the Toronto Star, Catherine Dunphy tells the story of Sasha Bella, 2-year-old daughter of Pamela Stein and Jonathan Blumberg, who spent most of her brief life dying.

Cathy showed Sasha's kiddie qualities. She writes the sick baby was noisy, intense, passionate, and she loved an audience.

While strangers may have seen that her skin was jaundiced and her belly distended, What her parents saw were her long fingers that could turn fragile pages in a telephone book without tearing them, her love of chips, crushed ice and watermelon toothpaste, the way she danced in her crib to Stevie Wonder, the big grin with which she'd greet her dad, how she would slap her forehead as if to say "Oy vey."

The writer explained Sasha's illness in layman's terms:
Born with a complex and very serious form of the rare Alagille Syndrome and a paucity of bile ducts causing bleeding and relentless internal itching, Sasha was missing the connection from her heart to her lungs.

It's clear that Cathy and Sasha's parents used this obit to tell readers that palliative care is for babies too and that To honour her, Stein and Blumberg have set up the Sasha Bella Fund through the Sick Kids Foundation to explore ways to support the parents — and perhaps some staff — of dying babies and children in a hospital geared and better suited to miracles.

Psycho scriptwriter, songwriter

Adam Bernstein's Aug. 30, 2006, obit for
Joseph Stefano gives the dead writer's scriptography, enhanced by details of what influenced Stefano's decisions in crafting his stories.

Stefano wrote the script for Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" based on the novel of the same name. The first shock of the film is the killing off of the leading lady, played by then mega-movie-star Janet Leigh, in the first 20 minutes. Adam explains how the script craftsman's introduction of Leigh's character brilliantly differed from the novel.

Adam also pointed out early in the obit that Stefano, who also wrote for the science fiction TV series "The Outer Limits," had begun his entertainment career as a minor Greenwich Village showman and penned songs for Las Vegas showman Donn Arden.

Just before the obit's closing credits, a.k.a. list of surviving relatives, Adam throws in this gem:

Mr. Stefano had an enormous sheet-music collection and once spent five hours challenging pianist Michael Feinstein about who could name increasingly obscure Tin Pan Alley songs.

Death of Australia's best-known obituary writer

It's our business to tell our readers when a fellow human being has died. It's even harder when the dearly departed is someone you know and feel is one of your own.

Philip Jones, the obit writer of Oz, who spoke to gatherings of grimsters at a couple of Great Obituary Writers Conferences, has died.

His fellow Aussie Nigel Starck, internationally known obits scholar, said he had just recommended Philip to a Melbourne company for a series of corporate obituaries, when he read about his death at Crikey.com.au, an Australian electronic newsletter site.

Here is the obit written by Crikey arts correspondent Stephen Feneley, who also counted Philip as one of his own:

Vale Philip Jones
By arts correspondent Stephen Feneley

Australia's best-known obituary writer is dead, so it will be left to lesser known and less capable obituarists to pen tributes to what was an extraordinarily varied and interesting life.

Philip Jones died on Friday, aged 74, of a suspected heart attack. I counted him as a friend but, regrettably, our friendship was only forged in relatively recent times. He was an odd mix -- self-effacing and melancholic, funny and mischievous, single-minded and fearless. He managed to upset many prominent figures, including Barry Humphries and the widow of artist Sid Nolan.

Jones and his long-time partner Barrie Reid lived for 25 years with the renowned art patrons John and Sunday Reed at Heide, the farm on the outskirts of Melbourne that had earlier been the gathering point for an extraordinary group of artists, including Sid Nolan, Albert Tucker and Joy Hester.

After the deaths of John and Sunday in 1981, the relationship between Jones and Barrie Reid fell apart, with Jones agreeing to leave old Heide farm house. Under the terms of the Reeds' will, the house was to go to whoever lived the longest out of Reid and Jones, but after Reid died in 1995, Jones was blocked from regaining possession of the house, something that remained a cause of bitterness and sadness until he died.

Nevertheless Reid's death proved to be the catalyst for Jones to make a career change in his autumn years. He wrote a controversial warts-and-all obituary of his ex-lover, and the notoriety he gained from it launched him into a whole new career chronicling the lives of the recently departed. He had previously worked as an actor and bookseller.

As well as obits, Jones also wrote occasional features and op-ed pieces, his most recent appearing in The Age only the weekend before last. It was an angry tirade on the state of contemporary culture, with Jones declaring that art -- instead of being a revolutionary activity -- had become "an aspect of lifestyle". He said too much art was being made today and he dismissed most of it as "clapped-out copies of the modern movement that expired a quarter of century ago".

Coming from someone who'd spent the best part of his life celebrating Australian culture, it was a very angry polemic, with Jones clearly believing that less is more. "A plethora of activity denigrates any human activity, be it food, s-x, art or even sport. In short, the quality of any human activity is mitigated by satiety."

I spoke to him the day after the op-ed piece was published to congratulate him on being so forthright. In his inimitably self-deprecating yet chuffed-with-himself way, he said he might have gone a bit too far but was bored with everyone being in thunderous agreement about everything and wanted to stir things up a bit. That was our last conversation.

Jones had been battling debilitating depression for many months. He suffered a major setback late last year when a publishing deal to write the definitive biography on Sidney Nolan fell through after Nolan's widow refused to cooperate. Penguin had given him a substantial advance, most of which he spent on two research trips to the UK before Lady (Mary) Nolan denied him access to her late husband's papers. Penguin didn't ask for the money back but that didn't assuage Jones's guilt at failing to deliver. He'd been severely critical of Nolan, whom he described as a psychopath, and other expatriates, including Barry Humphries, in his memoir Art & Life, published two years ago.

Writing about the dead, a topic at the Society of Professional Journalists National Conference

Larken Bradley of the Point Reyes Light, Adam Bernstein of The Washington Post and I (Alana Baranick of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio) are the panelists for a session on obituary writing at the Society of Professional Journalists National Conference at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago this week.

Our session is scheduled for Friday, Aug. 25, from 10:45-11:45 a.m.

If you attend the conference, please stop by and say, "Hi." If you're there on Friday, but won't be at our session, you may find at least one of us in the booksellers area.

I'll be at the Marion Street Press table, signing copies of "Life on the Death Beat: A Handbook for Obituary Writers," which I wrote with Jim Sheeler, now a Pulitzer-Prize-winning feature writer for the Rocky Mountain News, and Stephen Miller, obits editor for the New York Sun and writer of the Wall Street Journal's new obits column, "Remembrances." (Sorry. Those two accomplished guys won't be there.)

For more information about the Society of Professional Journalists and the conference, go to: www.spj.org.

Obit Laureate -- Fantastic!

The Morning News (online magazine) has recent obituaries — a gong striker, a burger matriarch, a bagpipe virtuoso— transformed into light verse. See this link

Wall Street Journal finally has obits!!!

On Saturday, Aug. 5, 2006, The Wall Street Journal debuted "Remembrances," which it calls "a weekly column that notes the passing of people who have left an imprint on the world of business."

Tracking the "imprints" is Stephen Miller, creator and editor of The New York Sun's obituary section, co-author of "Life on the Death Beat: A Handbook for Obituary Writers," and regular contributor to his blog.

Way to go, Steve!

Steve's first WSJ column notes the death of Govindappa Venkataswamy, an ophthamologist who patterned the system his eye-care clinics use to provide cataract surgery to millions in India after the way McDonald's restaurants serve Big Macs to countless fast-food junkies around the world.

The headline: "McSurgery: A Man Who Saved 2.4 Million Eyes."

The big story is followed by a few obit briefs for other recently deceased folks who made their mark on the business world.

Sorry. I can't give you a link to the full Venkataswamy obit. You have to subscribe to WSJ or find someone who has a copy to read it. If you don't want to subscribe, you might consider buying the Weekend WSJ to read "Remembrances" in the future.

Legacy.com, Moving Tributes

Editor & Publisher Online wanted to know what obituary writers think of Legacy.com and its multimedia Moving Tributes.

Sarah Weber, an E&P Onliner, sought answers from:

Dick Peery, my partner-in-grim, my mentor and the senior obit writer at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio;

Carolyn Gilbert, founder of the International Association of Obituarists, its annual Great Obituary Writers Conferences and Obitpage.com;

and Steve Miller, obits editor at The New York Sun and co-author of "Life on the Death Beat: A Handbook for Obituary Writers."

In Weber's online article, "Multimedia Online Memorials Draw Mixed Reviews From Obit Editors," Dick (whose byline is Richard M. Peery) says he doesn’t feel threatened by the Moving Tributes section and points out that these family-composed items should not be confused with obituaries written by journalists.

“If people have a real story to tell about their loved one, I don’t see them passing us up to get on Legacy.com. As long as papers don’t pick these things up and run these as stories, I’m okay with it."

From her perspective as probably the most knowledgeable readers of obituaries and dedicated friend of obituary writers from publications around the world, Carolyn sees value in Legacy.com and its Moving Tributes, but says that value may be limited to folks, who are Web savvy and, the article implies, have the means to pay for the service.

“It serves a segment of the community for sure,” Gilbert said, “but maybe the more sophisticated clientele.”

Steve Miller (whose byline is Stephen Miller) told Weber what he really thinks.

“From my point of view, they’re a pain in the butt,” said Miller.

His chief complaint is that Legacy.com takes away the ability to browse through paid obits, making it difficult to find interesting obit subjects.

"I don’t like the whole interface; if you don’t know the person’s name that you’re looking for, you have to click through the whole page. I want to see a whole string of stuff to scan real quickly to find the important information, and they don’t make that possible.”

I have found Legacy.com helpful when I'm trying to verify the deaths of potential obit subjects who have died outside of the Cleveland area.

As for Moving Tributes, I haven't used it for this yet, but I see that these could be helpful in getting an idea of the deceased's life, occupation, interests, etc.

What do you think?

A Wiki Obituary

In a recent interview with Popmatters.com, ex-reporter Jayson Blair lamented the fact that his obit will surely lead with his fall from grace at The New York Times.

"I cannot imagine anything I could do, no matter how long I live, that will change that first line of my obituary," Blair said.

In response to this statement, Gawker.com issued a challenge to its readers: Write the first sentence Blair's obituary. The winner of the contest will receive a one-year subscription to Times Select.

George Hopkins died again Friday.

Once again, Kay Powell has come up with an opening hook to catch the attention of Atlanta Journal-Constitution readers.

You have to keep reading her July 18, 2006, obit for George Hopkins, if you want to know how he manage to die AGAIN.

Was he a peer of Dracula, an undead vampire who was finally done in by a stake through the heart? Did he have a resurrection of biblical proportions? Or did some obituary writer kill him off prematurely years ago?

No. None of the above.

Kay writes:

The first time he died, the experienced World War II hard hat diver was a law school student testing experimental diving equipment. He was resuscitated and suffered only a bout with pneumonia.

" 'Let me tell you about the time I died,' that was his big introduction," said his daughter Edith Collins of Buford. "He said it was the most peaceful experience of his life. I don't think he dived in experimental equipment again."

This time he died of complications from Alzheimer's disease at his Atlanta residence.

Be sure to read the rest of the twice-dead Hopkins' story, told by Kay, the supreme Southern storyteller.

Fred Clark's Last Laugh

My View from the Reference Desk - Occasional Musings on
the World of Obits from Tom Hobbs:

'Ole Fred Clark was a jokester, all right. So it was only fitting that he got his last laugh -- and more than the allotted 15 minutes of fame -- on July 9 when the Richmond Times-Dispatch ran his self-penned obituary. The family had to tweak it a bit, as Fred had never expected to die as the result of an automobile accident. The spirit of the man shines through though, and we are all a bit the poorer for his passing.

It's pretty clear that this 61 year old Richmond resident and Verizon retiree was a rascal at heart. He wanted us to know of his affection for "bacon, butter, cigars, and bourbon" but he was clear on this: it was the sight of his wonderful wife Alice that really lit up his world. Fred was a patriot and a godly man in his way. He didn't hold politicians in high regard, though, as he professed his amazement at "what the voters would tolerate." Sorry that he couldn't realize his final wish -- "to be run over by a beer truck on the way to the liquor store to buy booze for a double date to include his wife, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter to crash an ACLU cocktail party" -- Fred asked that you commemorate his passing by making a "sizeable purchase" of spirits to get rip roaring drunk at home "with someone you love or hope to make love to." Something else about Fred . . . he wanted you to know that "he never peed in the shower - on purpose."

In a Times-Dispatch follow up piece running on July 11, Fred's son confirmed that his Dad had tamed the rowdy ways some during his last years but would still be going out literally with a bang. Fred's remains are to be shot from a cannon later this summer at a family party.

Clearly Fred Clark's obituary struck a responsive chord all across the political spectrum. As of late July 17, his guestbook at the legacy.com online obit contained 111 pages of entries.

Way to go, Fred! (Really!)

That's this View from the Reference Desk. I hope to be with you again from time to time.

(Tom Hobbs is a Reference Librarian at the University of South Carolina Aiken.)

New published story about the 8th and other Greats

Cathy Dunphy's editors at the Toronto Star gave her so much space for "Death Becomes Us," a feature about the 8th Great Obituary Writers Conference, that she added observations and lessons from the 6th and 7th Greats.

Great job, Cathy. I especially enjoyed the stranger's comment about obit writers being poets. Nice touch.

Censoring paid obituaries/death notices.

Cathy Dunphy, writer of the Toronto Star's "Lifelines" feature, wants to know about other newspapers' policies regarding the censoring of paid obits, a.k.a. death notices.

In lieu of a request for memorial donations in a paid obit, the bereaved relatives of one deceased mom asked mourners to wage a letter-writing campaign. They were unhappy about the "uneven" health care their mom had received from professional caregivers.

They ended their prepared obituary with a request that mourners send letters to the minister of health, requesting that more funds go toward providing the elderly with safe and dignified care in their final days.

Cathy's paper wouldn't run the request line because they deemed it too political.

Cathy said: "Our paper's classified people declared that this was a political statement and that our policy forbids running it. They also said that paid death notices are officially considered as editorial material. (That was a surprise.) It ran in the Globe and Mail though, which is where I saw it.

"Do you know anything about this issue? Our ombud is looking into it and asked me if I knew what other papers' policies are.

"Thanks for anything you can do."

Please share your thoughts on this one.

USA T'other day

And, as every year, Señor McKie's cowboy hat gets all the attention in USA Today today, also featuring Marilyn reading from The Dead Beat. Sounds like another great conference. And onwards to the ninth! I wonder if Isabel and I could arrange it for Spain next time?

The 8th was Great!

Approximately 40 conferees (plus 7 spouses) shared obit-writing anecdotes, philosophies and tips during conference sessions, over enchiladas, ice cream or brewskis at various eateries and bars and sometimes in front of cameras wielded by 2 filmmaking crews (10 people in all) at the 8th Great Obituary Writers Conference held last weekend at the Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas, N.M.

I won't identify all the participants here, but I will mention the presenters.

Bob Chaundy talked about assembling obituaries - complete with news, TV and film clips, previously recorded interviews with the deceased celebrity and man-on-the-street comments - for the BBC television news. Most interesting: How Bob put together an audiovisual obit for a rarely filmed scientist who discovered, identified or insert-the-correct-past-tense-verb-here DNA.

Kay Powell, the always delightful obituaries editor for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, talked about the history of obits for women and encouraged us to find interesting recently deceased women to write about. Mack Lundstrom (San Jose State University professor), Cathy Dunphy (Toronto Star reporter and journalism professor) and Tom Berner (retired Pennsylvania State University professor) talked about reporting suicides in obits. Spencer Michlin, who calls himself an iconoclast from Dallas, promoted family-written-and-paid-for obits that need not meet journalistic standards of truth or style.

Tim Bullamore, freelance obit writer who now sums up lives for The Daily Telegraph of London, explained how obits, similar to the New York Times' heralded "Portraits of Grief" series for folks who died in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, were done for victims of terrorist attacks in London and Bali. He recommended that every newspaper have a plan for such events.

Marilyn Johnson, author of "The Dead Beat," wanted us to adopt specific terminology for the standard parts of the obituary, so we obit writers could have a common language. While we all love Marilyn and enjoyed her stories and opinions, reaction to her suggested obit lingo was mixed. Some in our number felt we should stick with common newspaper terms for story parts. Having a separate language peculiar to obits could set us back in the respect we've worked so hard and so long to gain from our newspaper colleagues, who haven't always regarded obit writing as real journalism. Some conferees pointed out that "tombstone," Marilyn's term for the phrase in which we sum up a person's life, is what some of us call details - such as birth and death dates - that show up in an obit info box. During the Q&A, the word "furniture," which Mack Lundstrom uses for the mandatory list of survivors and funeral services that bog down our storytelling efforts, was mentioned. Interestingly, Marilyn's "tombstone" and Mack's "furniture" were used repeatedly during discussions throughout the conference.

Stephen Miller, obits editor at the New York Sun and a co-author (with me - Alana Baranick - and Jim Sheeler) of "Life on the Death Beat," talked about the only obit that won a Pulitzer Prize, appropriately for "deadline" reporting, and the amazing life of that Pulitzer-winning reporter, who is still living and writing under a different name.

Jim Sheeler, our co-author and a Rocky Mountain News general assignment reporter who sometimes pens obits, won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing - but not for an obit. He was the star of the 8th Great show. As usual, we sniffled through his heartstrings-tugging stories about military personnel who died too young. Jim himself got choked up when International Association of Obituarists founder and conference diva Carolyn Gilbert inducted him into the IAO Hall of Fame.

Betty Abah, a journalist from Nigeria and an Alfred Friendly Press Fellow with Sheeler's Rocky Mountain News, gave an impassioned presentation titled "Holding the Corrupt Dead Accountable, Celebrating the Wretched of the Earth: A Case for Obit Writing in Africa."

Two other conference newcomers, neither of whom write obits but whose work involves gathering facts about people's lives, also gave presentations.

EllynAnne Geisel, whose thick North Carolina accent has not been diluted after living for decades in Pueblo, Colo., told us some interesting stories about people she learned about while working on "The Apron Book," her aptly titled book about - you guessed it - aprons.

Pam Vetter, a former TV reporter, told us about her work as a funeral celebrant. She prepares and conducts funeral services and eulogies for folks who don't want formal religious rites. She's kind of like the funeral-arranging version of a wedding planner.

Andrew McKie wrapped up the conference with a general talk about the importance of writing obits. I really liked this. I hope future conferences end with similar tie-up-the-loose-ends sessions, led by veteran obit writers, with questions and comments from the conferees.

Carolyn told us to circle June 14-16 on the 2007 calendar for the 9th Great Obituary Writers Conference, but she hasn't decided on the location. She mentioned three potential sites, but didn't identify them to us. She said she will consult with a few IAO members before making a decision.

I for one hope the 9th Great is not in Las Vegas, N.M., again. I'd like a change of scenery.

But I also hope it's not in Israel, which was mentioned last year as a possibility for 2007. If it's held overseas, I'll have to miss it. I can't afford the expense or the time for such a trip.

Please post your comments about the 8th and 9th Great Obituary Writers Conferences.