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I work in a public library as an assistant and I'm the one who looks up obituaries for people who e-mail the library asking for an obituary. I enjoy researching stuff, even obituaries. They ask us to find every little detail from some relative from the last 5 years or even 100 years ago, unfortunately, at least with the newspaper in the city I live in, there was no set way to put an obit in the newspaper until after the 1970's. Between 1907 and 1970, families were lucky to even get an obit in the newspaper here, and even then, there was 1 or 2 lines mentioning the death deep inside the paper. I've read about various murders and then revenge for a murder a year or two earlier, the death of a former Governor who was from this area of the state, an F5 tornado which ripped through here in 1979, and I've even seen an article about Bonnie and Clyde staying at a motel here. I think really detailed obituaries are important since many people are doing geneologies for their families and would like to know more than when they died and who were the survivors.

Anyway, here is what I think an obituary should say:

Jane Doe died yesterday in her sleep, she was 95 years old. Mrs. Doe was born in Anywhere, TX in 1907 and married her husband, John, when she was 19 years old. Mrs. Doe moved to Anytown, USA 60 years ago after her husband was stationed at the military base here, and they decided to stay after he left the military shortly after World War 2. Mrs. Doe was a member of the Literary Council, occasionaly submitted articles to the newspaper, elected to the City Council when she was 60 years old, was a Sunday school teacher for the First Baptist Church, which she did until two weeks ago. She is survived by 6 children, 12 grandchildren, and 18 great-grandchildren. Services will be tomorrow at 3 pm at First Baptist and the burial will be shortly after. She will be missed greatly by the community.

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