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From:
Subject: 'THE OBITUARY'
Date: 7 Feb 2002 12:26:45 -0700


This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.

Surnames: The dead, A saintly soul, Angels - Reprobates, Chrisitians - Infidels, Charitable people - Merciless.
Classification: Obituary

Message Board URL:

http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/ok.2ADE/937

Message Board Post:

THE FREMONT COUNTY SUN. March 7, l901. "THE OBITUARY".--How grand it is for the newpaper writer to linger over the casket of the dead and silently dream of a saintly soul swept out into the sea of eternity. He drops a few tears on a few pages of copy paper and then writes an obituary, extolling the dead, commending his virtues, painting his wings for flight in the land of the angels. Beautiful tributes to the dead, golden words, glittering generalities, meaningless nothings, are scrolled out that mothers may weep and children may cry, and men may sigh.

What is the real end to be sought in obituary writing? The daily press contains none of the old fahioned obituary writing. Some of the weeklies do not. What does the general public want to know? It wants the more important facts. It want to know a brief history of the life and deeds of a well-known citizen, and less of a stranger. It wants a brief story of the closing chapter, the last sad rites, the grave. That's all. Just the facts.

This thing of making angels out of reprobates, Gods out of devils, christians out of infidels, public spirited citizens out of misers, charitable people out of the merciless, etc, is all rot. A newspaper obituary is no a passport to heaven. St. Peter may question the veracity of the author. There is too much gush, too much rot in obituary writing.--Iowa Falls Citizen.

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