Do you read obituary columns?

fuzzybuddy said:
There were 8 guys in my high school graduating class (15 girls). 4 of the guys have passed. ( don't know married names). And everyday, another famous person of our era passes away. Do you read the local obituary column?
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I have chosen to be ignorantly oblivious. I used to check the obits every day... but when it got to where more days than not had me coming away in tears because "I went to school with her" or "I dated him" or "oh no, that's my cousin!" :cry: just got to be too hard on me. Someone will contact me if it's something I need to know. My classmates have years to go yet before we even hit 70, so seeing their names is very unsettling. šŸ„ŗ
 
Thanks for the reminder. I just checked the obituary page of the town in Montana where I lived for 45 years. One coworker died last week. I think I'm seeing fewer death notices of friends and coworkers now since more and more of my old friends are now dead. I no longer experience the shock of seeing that another old friend died.
 

Well, that section of the newspaper never interested me. This subject reminds me of how my father, who was a compulsively fanatically newspaper reader, would spend hours on each newspaper, and then save them under the sofa cushions in order to resume reading what he had missed later.

Well, soon the sofa cushions were elevated and were detracting considerably from the living room's appearance.

Frustrated by the phenomenon, my mother was constantly asking him whether he was actually reading every single single item in those newspapers including the obituaries, and kept begging him to be selective.

He just silently gave her a blank stare and kept calmly piling them up while never resuming the reading. Occasionally, out of sheer frustration, my mom would unceremoniously gather and dump them all into the apartment building incinerator. On such occasions, my dad would arrive home from work, immediately notice that something was awry, look around confused, and finally ask:

"Where are my newspapers?"

Those are the things that occasionally led to my father to getting his thinning hair pulled, while vehemently yelling for my mom to release it.
 
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During the first year of the mRNA shots against Covid I've read many obituaries. Often I read there "died suddenly and unexpectedly". There have been very young people among them.
 
Iā€˜ve read them for years and itā€™s not because I expect to find anyone I know. Itā€™s just out of interest of their deaths but rather of their lives. A friend always did this; ironically, her cheap husband didnā€™t put in an obit for her. He could afford it.

The price of a newspaper obit is outrageous now so now I often never learn of deaths since I moved away.
 
Tazx said:
Never. No point. Who ever is in there, is not here anymore, so doesn't matter. Lol! Whoever doesn't show up is still here!
My worst fear...if I read them and I see my name! Lol!!!
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Very true. I also tend to imagine my name eventually being included and cringe. Similar to seeing the Grim Reaper somberly swinging his sickle menacingly in my direction.
 
The only time I really regretted not looking at obits was when I called an old friend to catch up on lost time. And her husband answered and said "Jackie's no longer with us." Which may have been less embarrassing if it had been recent, but it was two years prior. Cringe. :oops:
 
JustBonee said:
I know that many people do that, but I have never felt the need to get myself depressed needlessly.
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It's different for everyone, but I don't get depressed. I get saddened, which is entirely different, and usually I remember some good things I will miss about them. USUALLY, being the operative word here. I usually check that hometown paper twice a year, so it's not like a morbid addiction.
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No. I know I'm not on it and that makes me feel good so why mess with it? I only look if there are arrangements for someone I know died that would be listed with their obit so I'll know where the wake and funeral will be.
 
I no longer read the column in the papers because I no longer buy a paper and too many people I don't really know, from different areas are listed in their online obits. At least once a week, I check the websites of the local funeral homes that are likely to serve families that I know. I really should do it more often because I've missed a couple of funerals I would have attended had I known.
 
Okay, this may freak some folks out.....but back in my "drunken"
years, going from state to state, looking for jobs, i would peruse
the obits, cause they usually told where a man who'd died had
worked at, normaly the company name, so I would go to the
company or get on phone and apply for a job....sometimes
it worked, believe it or not.........:rolleyes:
 
No, but my maternal grandfather sure did. He was a "dedicated" hypochondriac and he'd faithfully read the obits every morning with his first cup of coffee. Since he knew practically everyone in town, he usually knew the person who died. Whatever they died of (and they almost always said in the obit), he'd suddenly have the symptoms.

Died of a heart attack? He'd immediately have chest pains. Stroke? Oy, how my head hurts! Cancer? I have this pain in my side! And it was off to the doctor. He was in really good health, but you'd never know it.

When he did die, it was while he was sleeping at night and we never did find out what he died of because my grandmother wouldn't allow an autopsy. I guess you could get by with that back then.
 
hawkdon said:
Okay, this may freak some folks out.....but back in my "drunken"
years, going from state to state, looking for jobs, i would peruse
the obits, cause they usually told where a man who'd died had
worked at, normaly the company name, so I would go to the
company or get on phone and apply for a job....sometimes
it worked, believe it or not.........:rolleyes:
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Apparently, that was a sure-fire way to find an apartment in the big cities like New York. They'd quite often put addresses in the obits and people would get up very early in the morning just to read the obits and head immediately to the apartment building to see if the apartment was available.
 
I would go to the Retiree Club for the Oil Corp I retired from and they list recent Obituaries. See some names that will ring a bell sometimes from many years ago.
Beyond that, not much as we can't get electronic obituaries for the newwpapers hardly anymore w/o paying for a subscription. And I don't blame the Newspapers as having to transition from Print to Electronic media surely must have put alot of them out of business.
So not much beyond looking at the work listings from time to time.
 
When I worked for the newspaper, it was big enough to have three editions every day: early morning, late morning and afternoon. If death notices/obits were called in early enough, they could make the late morning and the afternoon editions the same day.

We had to take turns being the "death notice lady" and come in very early to take calls. Usually it was the funeral home calling, but occasionally it would be the family.

Here's my story: I got a call from the family and took the notice (names changed to protect...uh...everyone and besides, there's no way I'd remember the names): "John Higgenbotham, age 75, beloved husband of the late Mary died Tuesday. Loving father of John Jr., Elizabeth and Susan. Funeral at ABC Funeral home at 10 a.m. Friday." No mention of burial.

Ten minutes later, the guy from ABC Funeral Home calls in: "John Higgenbotham, age 75, beloved husband of Helen died Tuesday. Father of Thomas, Michael and Eleanor. Funeral at ABC Funeral home at 2:00 p.m. Friday. Burial at Eternal Rest Cemetery following funeral."

So I ask the funeral home guy, "Wow, what a coincidence! How often do you have people with the same name on the same day?"

He says, "Oh, it's the same guy. The "first family" and the "second family" hate each other and can't be in each other's presence so they're having separate funerals. Since the "second family" has legal "possession" of the body, they get him last and the burial is on their dime." I asked if the first family was going to have a gravestone somewhere else in the cemetery and he said he thought it was being discussed but he hadn't heard if a decision had been made. I guess it would have been the end of the world if there came a time when someone from both families showed up to visit dear old dad's grave at the same time.
 

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