It Makes Your Breath Leak Out

When I started in newspapers at the princely sum of $285 per week, one of my duties as the night police reporter/photographer/phone answerer/getter of the copy desk's lunches was to write obituaries.

Occasionally, this involved writing the obituary of a prominent or interesting person. I once wrote an obit for a woman who had played the piano at the Holiday Inn in North Strabane for 25 years; her best-known claim to fame, however, was being hit in the head by a Roberto Clemente foul ball during the 1971 World Series. Her family and friends were delighted that the newspaper had memorialized her life with a little feature story; my biggest regret was that I didn't get to meet her while she was alive.

Usually, however, the subjects of "feature obituaries" were considerably more average --- former mayors or city councilmen.

And if we weren't writing a "feature," then obituaries followed a very rigid format:

John Q. Public, 89, of Canton Township, died Friday at Washington Hospital after a brief illness. He was born May 17, 1916, in Burgettstown, the son of John X. and Jane Doe Public. He was retired as a millwright for Jessop Steel and served in the U.S. Army in Germany during World War II. Mr. Public was a member of Immaculate Conception Church, the Washington Elks, and VFW Post 927. He is survived by his wife, the former Susan Customer; two sons, John Q. II and Steven, both of Washington; a daughter, Jane Jones of Canonsburg; seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Friends will be received from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. Sunday at the Warco-Falvo Funeral Home, Washington. A Mass of Christian burial will be held 10 a.m. Monday at Immaculate Conception Church, the Rev. Pius Clergy officiating, with interment to follow at Washington Cemetery.

It is a little creepy how easily the format still sticks with me, but I must have typed hundreds of those.

Some rules were drummed into my head the very first week; I am fortunate the night city editor didn't use a pica pole to literally drum them into my head:

1. People "die." They do not "pass away," "go home to be with the Lord," or get "carried away by the angels."
2. Those over the age of 75 do not die "suddenly" or "unexpectedly."
3. We will list a spouse or a "beloved companion." We will not list both.
4. We will list direct blood relatives. We will not list anyone more distant than a niece or nephew, so no matter how close they were to their second cousin, twice-removed, he or she ain't getting into the obit.
5. We care if they were a member of the Elks, Lions, volunteer fire department, Christian Mothers, Eastern Star, etc. We do not care that they played bingo every Tuesday night at Holy Cross.

Deviations from this format brought wounded howls of protest from the city desk. One night, early in my rookie career, a funeral director insisted that we list a 101-year-old woman as having "died unexpectedly." He harangued me, pleaded with me, wheedled and cajoled --- insisting that the family wanted it this way, and that I would only compound their grief by refusing --- until I relented.

I dutifully filed the obit and 20 minutes later, an editor on the desk exploded. "What the hell is this (bad word)! 'Unexpectedly!' The (very bad word) was one-hundred-and-(very, very bad word)-one years old, for (name of diety) sake!"

I was directed to call the funeral director back, and tell him, no, I was wrong, we would not be doing that, and if he didn't like it, he could take his obituaries and shove them up his (bad word).

As I found out when I called back, he knew that it wouldn't work. He just wanted to see if he could slip it past the new guy.

That was a lesson you don't learn in college.

Anyway, the newspaper could turn down certain language because it ran obituaries as a public service --- it didn't charge a fee. We also had "paid death notices" that ran as classified advertising, but those were printed in much smaller type, and even those had restrictions, most having to do with good taste.

Well, in this era of declining newspaper revenue, more and more papers are running paid obituaries --- they look like news stories, but are written and submitted by the families, who can put whatever they want into them.

A year or two ago, maybe longer, the Daily News went this route. And since then, no one in the Mon-Yough area has "died." They've "gone home to be with the Lord," "been carried to Heaven by the angels," "been reunited with their beloved (wife, husband, dog) in God's Eternal Glory," and for all I know, someone has probably "joined the bleedin' choir invisible" by now.

Ah, but I have yet to see a death notice as tasteless as the one below. Apparently, it's been making the rounds for a few months, and I have verified that the thing is real --- it's not an urban legend. Also, apparently, the newspaper where it ran --- the Raleigh (N.C.) News and Observer, owned, incidentally, by the family of Kevin McClatchy --- was deluged with complaints and has tightened the rules on paid obits since then.

I guess the family thought it was "funny." Well, here's a tip for those of you who may be saddled with the distasteful task of writing an obituary for a loved one: People clip these out and save them forever. Not everyone wants them to be "funny."

And even if it seems "funny" now, it won't seem "funny" 50 years from now, when your son or daughter pulls it from the family bible to show their son or daughter. They'll just think you were a dork. So show some restraint.

Anyway, the obit for Mrs. Dorothy Gibson Cully, aged 86, follows at the "continue" link. I'll give you just two highlights: She died after "all of her breath leaked out," while her father died with an apple in his mouth and his head in the oven.

Could I make that up? No, I could not.

Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer
July 2, 2005

On June 3, 2005 at 10:45 p.m. in Memphis, Tenn., Dorothy Gibson Cully,
86, died peacefully, while in the loving care of her two favorite
children, Barbara and David. All of her breath leaked out. The mother
of four children, grandmother to 11, great-grandmother to nine, devoted
wife for 56 years to the late Ralph Chester Cully and a true friend to
many, Dot had been active as a volunteer in the Catholic Church and
other community charities for much of the past 25 years.

She was born the second child of six in 1919 as Frances Dorothy Gibson,
daughter to Kathleen Heard Gibson and Calvin Hooper Gibson, an inventor
best known as the first person since the Middle Ages to calculate the
arcane lead-to-gold formula. Unable to actually prove this complex
theory scientifically, and frustrated by the cruel conspiracy of the
so-called "scientific community" working against his efforts, he
ultimately stuck his head in a heated gas oven with a golden delicious
apple propped in his mouth. Miraculously, the apple was saved for the
evening dessert. Calvin was not.

Native Marylanders and longtime Baltimore, Kent Island and Ocean City
residents, Ralph and Dot later resided in Lakeland, Fla., and Virginia
Beach, Va.. Several years after Ralph's death, Dot moved to Raleigh in
2001, where she lived with her son David.

At the time of her death, Dot was visiting her daughter Carol in
Memphis. Carol and her husband, Ron, away from home attending a "very
important conference" at a posh Florida resort, rushed home 10 days
later after learning of the death. Dot's other children, dutifully at
their mother's side helping with the normal last-minute arrangements --
hospice notification, funeral parlor notice, revising the will, etc. --
happily picked up the considerable slack of the absent former heiress.

Dot is warmly remembered as a generous, spiritually strong,
resourceful, tolerant and smart woman, who was always ready to help and
never judged others or their shortcomings. Dot always found time to
knit sweaters, sew quilts and send written notes to the family
children, all while working a full-time job, volunteering as Girl Scout
leader and donating considerable time to local charities and the
neighborhood Catholic Church.

Dot graduated from Eastern High School at 15, worked in Baltimore full
time from 1934 to 1979, beginning as a factory worker at Cross &
Blackwell and retiring after 30 years as property manager and
controller for a Baltimore conglomerate, Housing Engineering Company,
all while raising four children, two of who are fairly normal.

An Irishwoman proud of and curious about her heritage, she was a
voracious reader of historical novels, particularly those about the
glories and trials of Ireland. Dot also loved to travel, her favorite
destination being Eire's auld sod, where she dreamed of the magic,
mystery and legend of the Emerald Isle.

Dot Cully is survived by her sisters, Ginny Torrico in Virginia, Marian
Lee in Florida and Eileen Adams in Baltimore; her brother, Russell
Gibson of Fallston, Md.; her children, Barbara Frost of Ocean City,
Md., Carol Meroney of Memphis, Tenn., David Cully of Raleigh, N.C. and
Stephen Cully of Baltimore, Md. Contributions to the Wake County (N.C.)
Hospice Services are welcomed. Opinions about the details of this obit
are not, since Mom would have liked it this way.