Short Stuff: Obituaries

Learn everything we know about obituaries in 12 minutes!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey there, and welcome to short stuff. This is Josh,
there's Chuck, there's Jerry. We're gonna talk about death, the natural,
super hip thing to do. And there's Dave Ruse in
a bottle with a cork on top, screaming, let me
out right. That was weird, but I loved it. Yeah, Dave.

(00:24):
Dave helps us out with the longer form stuff. But
this is one of the old I don't know how old,
but one of the old house stuff works shorties. Did
he put together? Yeah? I don't think it was old.
I think it was new, one of the new. Just
mean the old website old you gotta say it like that,
then the old with any Yeah, the oldie. We sure

(00:47):
wasted a lot of time. Good. So Chuck, we're talking obituaries,
that's right. Do you read these? Um Probably not because
you're under eight. No, yeah, no, I know, but people
do love him. Yeah, it's interesting that I read that
um on. Oh. I think Beyond the Dash is what
it was called, which is great because you know the

(01:07):
dash between the date of birth and the date of death,
there's a dash between them. There's a website, an obituary
website called Beyond the Dash and they said, in obituaries
like your final gift to a loved one, you're celebrating
their life for all to see and read. Or if
you're one of those weirdos who reads obituaries for those

(01:29):
people to read and see. Yeah, I think, uh, I
think it's long been like elderly people read obituaries. The
joke is sort of the you know, because they're not
in them. Man, when when ages m becomes a real
thing in like ten years, this this episode is not
going to aged already a thing, a real thing. Okay,

(01:52):
you know what I mean. Yeah, but they have always
well they've they've changed a lot over the years, um,
which is sort of interesting. And this uh one of
the I mean, we're going to plug the genealogy website now, Okay,
there's a genealogy website though that has apparently you can
learn a lot about your genealogy just from researching obituaries

(02:16):
because they list so many people in the family. It's
like a family tree there. Yeah yeah, so um. And
then even obituary websites and genealogy websites, they've unleashed a
I on these things, and the bots have really had
a field day coming up with oh, bits dating back
as far as I can see to the seventeen fifties,
at least in the United States. Yeah, this one genealogy

(02:37):
website has uh two hundred and sixty two million published
obituaries online. Yeah, see if you can figure out which
one it is. Yeah, I guess so. But um, so
the bots have kind of they've they've said, Okay, well,
from what we've been able to ascertain, at least from
digitized newspaper records going back to the mid eighteenth century,

(03:00):
bits weren't a very big thing unless you were famous,
very Yeah, that's a really good point. Yeah, the deaths
of famous, well known, successful people have always intrigued us. Yeah,
I don't think you might might have told me that
obituaries were pre written for a lot of people, Yeah,
like the New York Times, oh bits, you know, like

(03:20):
the real deal ones. Yeah. Um, I think you told
me that a couple of years ago or something, and
I was just astonished. I definitely knew that. Yeah, it
sounds like something I would tell you probably, and it's
not made up over or afternoon tea. Right, but they'll
they'll just have like an no bit going on somebody
and then when they finally die, they can get it
out the door really quick, just by kind of summing
up at the end, he's filling that last beyond the dash.

(03:43):
And maybe if they did anything noteworthy in the last
like eight months of their life, they didn't. What I
wonder is do they Uh? Is it just for old
people or people that they think like a risky I wonder,
you know, we'll have to ask Jeremy Piven. I don't
get that right. He played an obituary writer in One
in Something. Was he an obituary writer who was a

(04:05):
big jerk? Probably is? He got specializes in those roles
he does. Interesting. So mid nineteenth century, uh, you started
seeing this change from just famous types to regular old
people getting their local paper usually to publish sort of

(04:28):
stripped down obituaries. Yeah. It was called the death notice.
It was basically superstriped town. Yeah, this person died and
that's that. There's still death notices around today. And apparently
if you're into obituaries so much that, um, you will
publish a death notice. What you're saying is it's basically
like a hold the date for more information about the funeral.

(04:49):
They still do those today, But that was what obituaries
were Originally it was just you know, the person's name
they died, maybe who they were survived by, maybe a
little bit about the funeral. But the reason o bits
were so thin originally was because back in the day
before the Lena type was invented, and I think the
eighteen eighties, when you put a newspaper together, every page,

(05:13):
every letter of every word of every sentence of every
line of every page LINGO, thank you um was set
by hand, by hand, yeah, every letter. So that's why
certain obituaries just had a name and died right exactly
with the date, maybe and you were you felt lucky

(05:35):
to even been mentioned. Probably. But then Lena type came
along and they said, hey, we've got a lot it's
a lot easier to make a newspaper. Now, let's make
more newspaper every day. So maybe we'll take a quick
break and we'll come back and talk a little bit
more about obituaries. You you want to know, you're in luck,

(06:03):
just chuck, Hey, chuck, let's talk a little bit more
about obituary. Yeah. I mean, there's certain things like the
Civil War obviously would ramp up the death notices, like
tens of thousands of these going out every year. Yeah,

(06:24):
and this was even before the lenotype too, right. I
think because they were soldiers, they felt like they needed
to do do so, even though it was a pain.
Plus also, there seems to have been a real increase
in fascination with death among the Victorians. Oh yeah, yeah,
I mean that's when they were taking bereavement photography. You know,
they were holding funerals at home. But they became much

(06:46):
more elaborate over time. Yeah. Well, what really changed was
the newspapers discovered that they could charge people money to
get a loved one listed in an obituary column, and
they could make some dough on it, and then it
became a real thing. They made fat stacks is everyone
called it. In two thousand eleven. These stats are pretty amazing, though,

(07:06):
From nineteen hundred, four hundred thousand obituaries in nineteen hundred
and then, uh, and that's from two million total newspapers.
By the nineteen thirties, there were one point to five
million obituaries in about two and a half million total pages. Yeah,
so obituaries themselves in number exploded because they were mecondoh right,

(07:28):
but they also the amount of the newspaper that they
represented exploded to and from a fifth to a half
of all pages were obituaries. Really, yeah, that's that's I mean, yeah,
it's usually wrong, but I'll bet it's close one point
to five million obituaries and two and a half million pages.
That's half right down the middle on the middle. Uh.

(07:51):
And this is where in the thirties and forties is
where you start to see that sort of classic obituary
notice that we know today not just died, sorry, but stuff.
It's it's a four part thing, the death announcement, a
little bit of a bio who they're survived by, and
then a little bit of the funeral info. Right, And
it didn't have to be like one paragraph each, but

(08:14):
I mean like it was in those segments. Sometimes the
middle bio part was extensive, depending on what they've done,
you know, sometimes the survived by was bigger than other
times like that. That's that sweet story about that veteran
who died in Florida, I think a couple of months ago,
and he outlived all of his family, and somebody got

(08:36):
word of it and it became like a viral thing
and tens I think like ten thousand people showed up
for his funeral, to make sure that he was seen off,
that he wasn't forgotten. What is your obituary, say, I
assume you have pre written it. First of all, it
just says died, died. Yeah, I've pre written it on
draft like six or seven. Yeah, No, I have not.

(08:59):
Have you now yours? I haven't even thought of mine.
I'm still l I V I N. Alright, alright, alright,
So this is where the genealogy comes in, and that
now you've got spouse's name, children's names, married names of daughters, grandchildren.
I mean you might see cousins if it's noteworthy, or

(09:23):
even even if it's not, if that's what the family
wants in there. Right, Because so the obituary, as Ruse
puts it as a quasi legal document. A lot of
people think you have to buy law, publish this in
the newspaper. You don't. You do, by law have to
file for a death certificate like we talked about in
the home burials short stuff. But you don't have to

(09:44):
publish it an obituary. But it's still definitely lets the
community know, hey, this person died, if you happen to um,
if this person happened to owe your money. It's about
to say, here's your chance to come, you know, make
your claim against the estate or whatever. So it does
serve some sort of function, but it's not like a
law that you have to publish an obituary. But but

(10:06):
it is up to the funeral home typically to publish
the obituary or contact the local newspaper. But the family
gives all the info that they want included in it,
and they're the ones who are footing the bill. I
think it's usually charged by line. So if you want
to include cousins, sure, but you know it's going to
cost you an extra eight cents second cousin Eddie really
worth it? Yeah? Uh? And then things changed again really

(10:29):
after nine eleven, apparently when the obituaries became much more
personal and these great stories started coming out about the
people who died on nine eleven. And I think that's
sort of, at least according to the people that they
quote in this article, said that that kind of changed
things all over the country and people started being a
lot more honest and maybe funny and making them real memorials,

(10:54):
but also, like I said, being honest and not brushing
things under the rug um, like if someone suffered from
depression and died by suicide. They wouldn't just put a
vague died suddenly at home. Yeah, exactly what they used
to say. Yeah, and I'm sure some of them still do.
But I think there's a trend towards honesty and openness
now more so for sure. And and apparently according to

(11:16):
Susan Soaper, who is an obituary expert as far as
Dave Ruse is concerned, she said that that was probably
what turned the tide, that that September eleven narrative obituary thing.
Did you read about that last thing about the saying
that the deceased will not be missed in some cases?
Whose was that? Was that just one? As far as

(11:36):
I could tell, it was just one. But a few
years back there was a woman um whose children, whose
adult children, UM said that the world would be better
off without her, or the world is now better off
without her, and she will not be missed. She she
really jilted them as children and they had never forgiven
her for it, and caused a huge outcry backlash, and

(12:01):
actually everyone sympathized with the dead woman, not the kids,
and not the kids. The kids were taken as like
little monsters who could not, who couldn't forgive their mom.
But it was a huge deal and it really kind
of said a lot about how we view the deceased
and their last you know send off. You know, just
how how many warts should you show? Right? And like,

(12:26):
even if that was I don't know, I'm not gonna
take a side. But even if that's the case, is
it is it gratifying to give mom a finger on
the way out the door? Yeah? I don't know, I don't.
You'd have to ask those kids not They were very um,
they were probably very surprised at the international backlash that
it garnered. Interesting. Well, that's a f obituaries, Chuck, Yes,

(12:50):
that means short Stuff is out. Stuff you should Know
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