When I started writing obituaries for this newspaper recently, some friends and colleagues looked at me with sympathetic eyes.
Historically, the obituary desk has been a sort of journalistic equivalent of the last row at the United Center–your back up against the wall, hundreds of feet away from the real action. I’m sure everybody figured I’d miss the chance to get on Page 1, that I’d feel lost writing for the rear of the metro section.
But at the time, I didn’t have a permanent position at the paper, and I had a hunch that the obit desk was a treasure waiting to be discovered. It turned out to be exactly that, partly because obituaries still are evolving.
For years, obituaries were little more than a string of statistics about the deceased. Just three decades ago, they didn’t even carry bylines. But the late Alden Whitman of The New York Times, whose first bylined obituary appeared in 1967, helped transform how obituaries were written. He traveled the country interviewing famous people in preparation for the day their obituaries would run. The Times carried on the tradition Whitman started, and today the paper’s obituary page is one of the best-read and most highly regarded sections. Last year, the Times published an anthology of its best obituaries, titled “The Last Word.” Many entries included less-than-famous figures who nonetheless lived extraordinary lives.
The Tribune also is reaching out to people from all walks of life for its obituary page. Years ago, college presidents, religious leaders and captains of industry dominated the space. Now, the paper is trying to tell the stories of ordinary people, and it recently expanded the coverage for some suburban editions.
Some of the stories offer life lessons, some even a little drama. And perhaps more than anything else in the paper, articles offer journalists a chance to relate immediately and directly to a grieving family. That intensely personal part of the job can be both a great reward and a troubling challenge.
To be sure, I wasn’t thrilled when I started combing through the death notices every day. After all, my world had been focused on new life. Ten months ago I gave birth to my first child. If it weren’t for this job, the subject of death probably wouldn’t enter my mind much at all.
But I learned quickly as an obituary writer that I’m not really writing about death, but about life and the distinctive ways in which people lived theirs. Even the most sorrowful relatives, if given a chance, will break into laughter or animated storytelling when they recall those lives. It affects what I feel when I write about them.
Some people have inspired, such as Margaret Baker, who climbed her way from a runner’s job on the floor of the Chicago Board Options Exchange to become the first female chief executive officer of First Options of Chicago Inc., one of the country’s largest clearing firms. At the same time, she was raising three young children with her husband. She earned respect and admiration of many friends, co-workers and family members, all before she died at age 42.
Her husband recounted for me the day he was introduced to her mischievous sense of humor even before being introduced to her. She played a joke on the stranger who would become her husband, telling a bartender that he had offered to treat her and her friends to drinks.
“I was just sitting at the end of the bar watching a sporting event, and the bartender started taking my money. Of course, Peg was behind all of this,” Al Baker told me. “She was crazy. She was a nut. And she was perfect as far as I was concerned.”
The principal at the Wilmette school her children attended also praised her for being a committed mother even while she held major responsibilities as CEO.
As a working mom, I struggle daily with the same sort of conflicts that she must have faced, and I often worry that I’m not giving enough to my child, my husband, my job. After learning about Peg Baker, I went home and hugged my son and husband tightly, and felt a new commitment to my juggling act. It was just one of many times that I found myself picturing my own obituary. Would people in my life be able to say similar wonderful things if I die in 10 years?
Then there are the history lessons, as when William Noel Alsbrook taught me how discrimination can transform lives. Mr. Alsbrook always wanted to be a flier, and he became one, but only for a short time until racial discrimination stopped him from pursuing many of his dreams. He was one of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American aviators in the U.S. armed forces. Yet after his return from World War II, he couldn’t get a job as an airline pilot because of his race. He became a TV repairman instead, as well as an aspiring inventor and beloved father of two sons.
Obituary writers can reach back into an era and see how some of the noteworthy figures of the time went on with their lives after the public shifted its attention elsewhere. That was the case with Roland Picaro Low, one of the last surviving Chicago actors from vaudeville’s heyday. For years after his long-running comedy act known as Low, Hite and Stanley broke apart in 1961, he lived in poverty but continued performing wherever and whenever he could–in clubs, barbershops, even as he crossed the street with strangers. In a way, his death at 96 was a sad story, but it was uplifting in that he never stopped entertaining.
When people die in their 80s and 90s, I can focus on their full lives, but when young people die, the untimeliness can be overwhelming. In those cases, focusing on the life is more than just the best way to handle the reporting and writing. It’s the only way to protect myself and my emotions.
On a busy day a few months ago, I found myself speaking with a father of a 15-year-old girl who had just been killed in a Christmas Day ski accident.
“I don’t know if you’re a parent,” he told me, “but there’s nothing worse than losing a child.” I had heard of such feelings before, but this time the words made me wince. Later, as I interviewed friends of his daughter, Kristen Kolar, an image emerged of a girl who had lived fully and passionately while she could. A camper since she was a toddler, she spent many family vacations at national parks and aspired to be a park ranger. She adored the outdoors.
“She became a vegetarian so animals wouldn’t be killed,” her father said. “She was just a good-hearted kid.”
Such emotional tests can lead to growth. An interview with the daughter of Chicago schoolteacher Larry Minkoff was that way. Her dad died at 56 of lung cancer and she sounded about my age. Several years ago, my dad died in the same way at age 62. I had written his obituary and recalled how important it was to our family that his life be remembered properly. I thought about that while preparing Larry Minkoff’s obituary.
I often hear back from families who seem to appreciate our efforts and feel that we care about their loss. That’s probably the most rewarding part of a job that has–as I had hoped–moments worth reflection. If obituary writing is the journalistic equivalent of the last seat in the house, for me, at least, the seat fits fine.
