How to Write an Obituary

Have you ever thought about who would write your obituary? We have shared several interesting and fun obituaries on this blog that were written by the deceased themselves, (HERE & HERE) but have you ever thought about the kind of pressure you would have, having to write one for someone else? If you are being asked to write an obituary for someone else, odds are they were someone very near and dear to your heart, which could pose even more difficulties for you in writing something with a clear mind. Below are some key steps to take while drafting an obituary for your loved one that should help make this processes easier and help you not feel so overwhelmed.  

1. Get in touch with your local newspaper and/or Funeral Home. 

You need to make arrangements to print the obituary. By contacting your local newspaper, and your Funeral Home, you can learn what it will cost to have the obituary printed, the deadline for when it will need to be submitted, and when it will be printed. Plan to publish the obituary at least 1-2 days prior to services so that friends and family can make arrangements to attend. Also make sure to ask if they have specific guidelines for the obituary. Some Funeral Homes might even provide you with a form to help you with the drafting of the obituary. 

2. Biographical Sketch.

It is called a sketch because you are not supposed to include an entire live's biography in the obituary, but more of a broader picture of the person's life and important information. While there are things that make each person's life unique, we all have some common threads when it comes to milestones, and so here is a list of some important factors to include:

• Full name of the deceased (including maiden name, nickname, or any other name by which your loved one might be identified)
• Dates and locations of birth, marriage, and death
• Cause of death
• Predeceased and surviving loved ones’ names
• Schools attended
• Military service
• Place of employment and position held
• Membership in organizations (for example, civic, fraternal, church)
• Hobbies or special interests

3. Family

The obituary is for the living too, and one of the most important parts is the listing of survivors and those who preceded your loved one in death (remember that preceded means to come before, while proceeded means moved through). In the confusion and preoccupation of grief, important relatives can be forgotten. It’s unfortunate if we forget to mention a hobby or interest, but it can be painful if we forget to mention a step-child or sister.

Typically you list survivors first, starting with the closest relations: spouse, children, grandchildren, great and great-great grandchildren, parents, and siblings. If any of these relations are nonexistent or have died, skip and move to the next relation. Nieces, nephews in-laws, and cousins are usually left out, or simply numbered unless they were close to the deceased. Grandchildren and greats are often numbered too, and if you not sure you have all the names, use a number or say ‘many grandchildren’ to avoid leaving anyone out. List relatives with their first name, spouse’s first name in parenthesis, then surname. If the spouse’s surname is different, or the couple is not married, include the partner’s surname in the parenthesis along with their first name.

4. Service Times

If services are public, include full funeral service information: location, day, and time of visitation, memorial or funeral service, and burial.  If services are private, indicate so (for example, "Burial will be private" or "Private services will be held").

5. Be Unique

With all the standard and important information that is included, your obituary can easily become stale and uniform. Make your loved ones obituary unique by showing how they stood out as an individual. Using specific examples that made them unique or stand out will help illustrate and bring to life the person you are honoring and remembering. What was a quirky habit they had? Did her sense of humor brighten your life, did he always make time for the kid’s games? Did she make guests feel welcome? Paint her picture in the obituary with these details. Ask loved one's for their input here as well. Ask for details they recall, or loved about the person. How did they look or dress? What made them happy? Try and be creative with these details because this is what really highlights the individual! Try to remember specific instances where she made a difference in the lives of others. Such information inspires people and helps them connect with the deceased.

6. Special Messages

At the end of an obituary a special message is sometimes found, such as ‘in lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to..’ or ‘Special Thanks to the staff at General Hospital for..’ or ‘We will always carry your memory in our hearts’. Sometimes a short prayer or a line from a poem is placed at the end. These messages are optional, but can be a way of communicating something that did not fit into the body of the obituary.

7. Photos

Photos add to the cost of an obituary, but can be a pleasant reminder of the person we miss, and a useful way for readers to recognize our loved one among all the other obituaries. It’s a great treat to see old photos and to be reminded of all the living that happened before old age and death, but friends may not recognize the person in the photo, so if you are wanting to use a dated photo it would be smart to include a recent shot as well.

Finding Harold

VIA.

Unless you are used to the bustling throng of city life, it’s hard to explain the inherent loneliness one feels upon first entry into Wyoming’s high country. Internal sirens blare as all of your city coping skills call in for backup. None arrives.

It’s far too quiet.

Too big.

And under the weight of all that blue, even the sky starts to feel heavy. 

Let alone when one moves from a city of nearly 60,000 to a population of 4 in a remote outpost stuck out in the middle of a desolate high desert prairie. 

Welcome to Lost Springs, Wyoming. It’s America’s smallest incorporated town. After having moved to Lost Springs just over a year ago from Idaho Falls, Anngela Starnes learned exactly how long a day could feel.

“It was really, really hard at first,” Anngela says, wistfully. “I was so lonely for people, even though I was also really happy to finally have my family under one roof.”

She had resisted the move for four years. At the same time, she really missed her husband. Buddy owns A&B Trucking Company and had moved to work in Orin Junction with sporadic visits home. 

His persistence won her over in the end, when he overcame Anngela’s final stipulation – no trailers! – by finding a lovely rental house in Lost Springs with a rural school close for her teenaged daughter Nikki.

“It just felt like it was meant to be,” Anngela says with a smile. “I figured, why the heck not.”

That said, even with the family at place, the lack of human contact was hard for her to take. She’s naturally social with a warm, talkative spirit. Human connection is her lifeblood, and, as a certified addiction counselor, Anngela had spent the past 20 years helping people.

So she started walking.

Really walking. Often up to four or five miles a day, along the dusty country roads and section lines, the lifeblood connecting neighbors across the vast miles of empty land.

“I would walk for hours,” she laughs, “just looking for people, talking to nature, trying not to go too crazy.”

This is how she stumbled upon Prairie View Cemetery. At first, she mistook it for a grain field. The white of a headstone, barely noticeable in the overgrown drab green sagebrush, caught her attention.

She had always been drawn to cemeteries and other historic places. It’s the Victorian in her, she laughs, that ultimately led her to open the rusty gate and explore.

What she found nearly broke her heart. Overturned headstones gnarled within weeds and sage, graves so eroded that names were barely legible, others unmarked and lost in the overgrowth.

Most disheartening for Anngela were all of these lost lives, untended, forgotten or potentially unknown, by loved ones – most of whom had long since moved or passed away themselves, or are too old and frail or far away to maintain the upkeep of these familial graves.

She returned with her daughter Nikki and a weedwhacker. The pair blazed through the cemetery, clearing a path.

Two days later, she could barely operate a TV remote.

2015 NFDA Innovation Award

 

The NFDA International Convention & Expo is the place where all facets of the funeral service profession can come together to learn and share thoughts and ideas on the latest trends, technology and products. At this year's Convention, ASD’s MobileFH™ won the 2015 NFDA Innovation Award. This prestigious award is given annually to a funeral service vendor whose product or service was introduced during the previous year and represents creativity, innovation and excellence. 

MobileFH™ was developed by ASD’s technology team after hearing directors describe a common problem they experienced when using their cell phones for funeral home business. Caller ID, as helpful as it is, can also cause a lot of headaches. From the risk of a missed call to the frustration of being contacted while off duty, these problems can make it difficult for funeral professionals to separate their personal and professional lives. MobileFH™ provides a new solution to this problem by allowing funeral professionals to call any number from their cell phone and display their funeral home’s number as the outgoing Caller ID.

Not only are Directors less likely to receive business calls while off duty and in a distracting environment, the app also keeps phone numbers private, and ensures that families will always recognize when someone from the funeral home is contacting them. This aspect of the app alone could help secure business that would have otherwise been lost in the shuffle and stress that typically surrounds family members after the passing of a loved one.

Calls placed using MobileFH™ are also recorded providing a convenient tool to review and evaluate after-hour calls. Call recordings give Owners and Managers a way to objectively evaluate how employees handle challenging pricing and preneed calls. These recordings can become excellent training tools to help staff improve customer service skills.

Learn more about this helpful app and what it could do for your business!

Woman Buried Alive, Funeral Goers Hear Screams From The Grave...

The fear of being buried alive has been a real fear for centuries, in fact, the phobia even has a formal name; taphophobia. Before modern medicine this fear wasn't completely irrational. Before the 20th century, methods of determining death were far from reliable and cases of premature burial was not uncommon. Throughout history, there have been numerous cases of people being buried alive by accident. Because of this a large number of designs for safety coffins were patented during the 18th and 19th centuries. Safety coffins were fitted with a mechanism to allow the occupant to signal that he or she has been buried alive. On his deathbed in 1799, George Washington made his attendants promise not to bury him for two days. One of Edgar Allan Poe's horror stories, "The Premature Burial", is about a person suffering from taphophobia. Other Poe stories about premature burial are "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Cask of Amontillado"—and to a lesser extent, “The Black Cat." 

"In 1905, the English reformer William Tebb collected accounts of premature burial. He found 219 cases of near live burial, 149 actual live burials, 10 cases of live dissection and 2 cases of awakening while being embalmed." - The Corpse: A History 

You would think this fear would be something of the past, but just this month a 34 year old woman was buried alive. Unfortunately in her case it wasn't an accident. Now 8 News reported the Chicago modern day horror story; "A 34 year old woman in now recovering from a most bizarre scene, one you only hear about in the movies. A Chicago family was grieving the loss of their son, as they said their final goodbye’s at his funeral. Police say it was unlike anything they had ever seen before. Reports say that approximately 15 minutes after the body of the man was laid to rest, the family of the deceased began to hear screams. 

“We decided to stay for a bit after the funeral, to let it all sink in. When all of a sudden we heard screams, but we could not figure out where they were coming from,” said one family member who wished to stay anonymous. “We realized it was coming from under the grave where we just laid my brother. We ran and got help.” Police say when firefighters arrived, they received permission from the family to dig up the freshly dug grave. As they did, the screams became louder and louder. When they reached the coffin, they pried it open, to find 34 year old Linda Lynch inside. 

Police say it was a twisted plot. The coffin of the man, who was supposed to be buried, was wheeled to the back and his body was quickly removed after the service by the funeral director, Harold Lynch, at Thomas Hite Funeral Home, who had attempted to murder his 34 year old estranged wife. Lynch had drugged his wife with arsenic and hid her in the funeral home, perfectly timing it with the scheduled burial.  The young man who was scheduled to be buried was found wrapped in a blanket in the funeral home basement.

Lynch’s wife is currently hospitalized in stable condition undergoing an intense detoxification process. Lynch is being held on a $200,000 bond and faces attempted murder charges. The Chicago family has properly buried their son.

Whether accidental, or murder, the fear of being buried alive has found its way into our culture through scary movies, and literature. If for some reason you find yourself in this predicament, here are some steps on how to survive being buried alive in a coffin! You can also check these ones out from the worst case scenario website.

Have a fun and safe Halloween weekend! 

Online Funeral Planning - Should Funeral Homes Have To Post Prices Online?

 

Prices for the same funeral services in the same city can be double or triple those of a nearby funeral home. With that being the case, it is obviously in someone's best interest to comparison shop funeral homes to find the best price. But is that really what a loved one going through a difficult time wants to be doing?

Today almost everything can be purchased online, our bills, clothes, pets, the list is endless really. E-commerce appears to be the way of the future. However when the Funeral Consumers surveyed funeral home prices and disclosures in ten areas of the country, tracking down prices for 15 funeral homes in each area, including at least one part of a funeral home chain; the Alliance found 16% of the 150 funeral homes failed to disclose prices on a website, in response to an email or in response to a phone call. Not only that but Steve Brobeck, executive director of the Consumer Federation of America, found that in the same city there is a huge range in prices for essentially the same thing. Prices for the same funeral services within individual areas almost always varied by at least 100 percent and often varied by more than 200 percent. Direct cremation charges ranged from $455 to $3,390 in Seattle. Immediate burial charges ranged from $1,195 to $5,200 in Atlanta. And full-service funerals ranged in the District of Columbia ranged from $3,370 to $13,800.

“As an advocate who’s researched prices for consumer services for decades, I was stunned by the price differences. The huge price ranges for identical funeral services within individual areas indicate that these markets lack effective competition,” said CFA Executive Director Stephen Brobeck in a statement. “The lack of price competition is unfortunate given the relatively high cost of funeral services and the reluctance of many bereaved consumers to comparison shop for these services.”

Because of these wide gaps in price, thirty-one years after the Federal Trade Commission’s Funeral Rule intended to make funeral home pricing more transparent became law, consumer advocates are calling on the FTC to require funeral homes to post prices online.

The CFA found just 25 percent of funeral homes post prices on the Internet, largely because they don’t have to. "Federal law only requires funeral homes to provide prices by telephone or mail—antiquated relics, the CFA says, of 1980’s rulemaking." 

Price transparency aside, with a younger more tech savvy generation up next, wouldn't it make more sense to have some kind of online funeral planning available anyways? With the baby boomers coming up as the next senior population, the funeral industry is going to be hit with a lot more business, and it will undoubtedly shake things up for the old ways things have typically been done. What is the future for the funeral industry? I can't say but change seems to be imminent!

Families choose home funerals for their loved ones...

Sisters Rebecca, left, and Lacy Denboer spend a moment with their mother LuAnn Denboer at her casket during a home funeral.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/fort-worth/article38772249.html#storylink=cpy

Article originally appeared on Star Telegram

It had been a rough five years for Robert Denboer, who mourned the deaths of his mother, father, mother-in-law and several close friends in quick succession.

Then, in June, the cancer his wife had fought to a stalemate years ago returned vengefully. He knew he would be planning another funeral.

One day Denboer wandered onto a YouTube video of two women discussing home funerals — services conducted for loved ones, usually unembalmed, right in the living room or other part of the house.

“I got two impressions out of it,” said Denboer, 60, of Fort Worth. “One, that it was morose, even kind of gross, just too strange. But the other impression I got was that the two ladies talking about it were very sincere and felt it was the only way to fully experience that their loved one was gone and to be reconciled with that.”

He discussed having a home funeral with his wife, LuAnn, who liked the idea but didn’t want their adult daughters to be uncomfortable with it.

Rebecca and Lacy Denboer, who live at the family home, hesitated at first.

“It seemed a very foreign idea,” said Rebecca, 30. “My initial reaction was, ‘Is this going to be respectful enough?’ ”

Home funerals are nothing new. In the pioneer days, families took care of their dead on their own. Funeral homes didn’t start springing up until embalming procedures were refined and became popular during the Civil War.

Home funerals are legal in all states, although 10 of them require the involvement of a licensed funeral director for some services.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/fort-worth/article38772249.html#storylink=cpy

Texas is not among those 10 states, although critics say some funeral directors don’t always make that clear to their grieving customers.

Bonnie Smith of Arlington, a nurse who had a home funeral for her husband in April, complains that many funeral directors push expensive, unnecessary services on families who may too be shellshocked with grief to make good decisions.

“Especially people who go into debt to pay for this and they don’t have the money. That’s terrible,” Smith said. “They don’t know what they’re getting into.”

Michael Land, past president of the 125-year-old Texas Funeral Directors Association, said the vast majority of funeral directors have the best interests of the families at heart. For those needing more incentive, the U.S. Trade Commission’s “Funeral Rule” has strict requirements for openness and fairness.

“When we sit down with a family, we have to disclose certain things — like embalming is not required by law and not all cemeteries require an outer burial container,” Land said. And they must go over a detailed price list with the family. “But when a family comes in to make arrangements, we don’t just sit down and say, ‘You know you can do this yourself.’ ”

19,391 Number of funeral homes in the U.S. in 2015, down from 21,528 in 2004, according to the National Directory of Morticians
 

People like Elva Roy are working to spread the word that there are alternatives to full-service traditional funerals, also including green burials, in which all materials are completely biodegradable. Roy says more and more people are learning about their choices — certainly those in the audiences she speaks to as a board member of the advocacy group Funeral Consumers Alliance.

“We as Americans have been conditioned to fear death. It’s a taboo subject because we’re in denial that one day we’re going to die,” said Roy, who helped the Denboer family with their in-home service. “So it’s hard to even get a conversation going with family members.”

Home funerals are clearly less expensive than traditional funerals, which on average cost about $10,000 in the U.S., including a standard casket and cemetery vault, said Land, who has been director of Forest Ridge Funeral Home in Hurst since it was founded in 1997.

Documenting your Funeral with Videography

Documenting important events has been something we do for decades, and over the last several years videography for weddings, births, and even just family outings has become common place. But what about videography for your funeral? We have heard about live streaming your funeral, but actually making a video to remember the day and watch later?  

Professionally filming your funeral has become very popular in New Zealand, and videographer/editor Juliet Campbell makes a great point that it is a way for family and friends who live overseas or who can't attend to be able to see the funeral, commenting that they sends "heaps of DVDS overseas." Campbell brings up the fact that a lot of times family is going through such a hard time it can be hard for them to remember everything from the day, and having it documented in this way provides them the opportunity to go back if they want, adding that the video also acts as an archive for families for who was in attendance.

With funerals making a shift towards "celebrations of life" I guess it would make sense to document such an event, especially since they tend to be a family reunion of sorts. There is a joke in the pre-need funeral business that people spend so much money on a wedding when so many marriages aren't a guarantee. However, when the one guarantee in life is that you will one day pass, people don't want to spend money on their funerals.

Campbell reiterates that filming a funeral isn't a morbid thing, but like watching a biography of the persons life. In New Zealand, professional filming of your funeral has become a service offered by many funeral homes. Read more HERE.

With the younger generation documenting everything from what they had for lunch, to what they are wearing for the day, maybe this isn't such a weird idea after all. Funeral homes should take note of this new line of business that could prove to become common place in the funeral industry very soon!