CELEBRATING 1998 THROUGH ITS OBITUARIES
by Allan R. Andrews
American Reporter Correspondent
Washington, D.C.
WASHINGTON, (Dec. 31) -- The year 1998 dies today, and it has taken with it several persons I remember joyfully and meaningfully and -- thanks to their obituaries -- can celebrate.
Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, two who defined the phrase "singing cowboy" in the 20th century, were among noted persons who passed away. Not only did they define the virtuous cowboy for this city kid, but their music, despite its fall from popularity, springs to life in stock phrases such as "Happy trails to you," and "I'm back in the saddle again."
Two great sportswriters, Jim Murray of the L.A. Times and Shirley Povich of the Washington Post, died in 1998. For me, they established the art of refined sportswriting that relegates most of today's fan-and-jock sports journalism to being an embarrassment.
Dan Quisenberry and Doak Walker, premier athletes in their respective specialties, succumbed earlier perhaps than expected to the ravages of life. From everything I know or have read about them, these men clearly established that there is life after the spotlight of sports and that it has far more meaning than anything they ever did with a ball.
Not all of those I celebrate whose time ended in 1998 were celebrities. A college classmate lost her battle with breast cancer this year. She was a devoted wife, mother and grandmother -- and an unassuming and faithful organist in her home church.
Something there is about the end of a year that moves us to remember those whose days among us ended, and journalism is a chief contributor to our memorializing. Except for my college friend, those I mentioned above I've known only through the media.
Each year, the Associated Press publishes a list of those who died in the previous 12 months. In the Washington Post this year that AP listing ran under the headline, "Some who bid adieu in 1998." The wire service publishes a separate listing of notable sports personalities who died during the year. In every case, the memorialized are celebrities of a sort.
The Boston Globe used to fill the space reserved for its New Year's Day editorials with the names of those in and around Boston who died in the past year. Most of the memorialized were newsmakers, but some were not, except perhaps in their own communities. I'm told this is no longer a Globe tradition. That's too bad for the Hub community.
Obituaries, though read by a minority of newspaper readers and often considered morbid, are a staple of many papers. In fact, several newspapers make a small profit by charging for obituaries. While the obituary may not have escaped the bottom-line mentality of journalism's profiteers, it is an area of newspaper journalism that has not been commandeered and scooped by broadcast news.
Richard Pearson, the obituary editor at the Washington Post, maintains a wonderful sense of humor about his job. Last summer he told people during an email forum the Post operates, "Everyone dies in the first graf of my stories, but I console myself with the thoughts that there are relatively few complaints from people I write about."
When one person on the forum asked about celebration in connection with death, Pearson said, "I believe any number of obits could be called joyful in a sense, especially someone who has obviously accomplished much and led a very full life and died a peaceful death."
Although I might quibble with Pearson's demands for accomplishment and a peaceful death, I think the notion of celebrating someone's life in print is valid. In fact, modern journalism could learn some lessons from the past regarding obituaries.
For example, when was the last time anyone read an obituary celebrating the life of a child? Such was common in 19th century journalism.
Dr. Janice Hume, a journalism professor at Kansas State University and a former arts editor for the Mobile (Ala.) Register, wrote her doctoral dissertation on how obituaries reflect value changes in American society.
During an interview last year, Hume said about her study of more than 8,000 obituaries from three distinct periods of American history, "I learned a lot about how men's, women's and children's lives were valued differently throughout history.
"Obituaries demonstrate what we want to remember about individual lives," Hume said. "They reflect what we value about an individual's life."
The values come through, Hume said. "I discovered that the 19th century obituaries focused on character, while the obituaries in the 20th century are more concerned with professional affiliation."
One Post forum participant pointed out a similar phenomenon to Pearson, asking why deceased persons are typically identified by their occupations. "Why is more value placed on what the deceased did for a living than who they were?" the participant asked.
Pearson's answer underscored the public person. "We are largely recounting the public events of a life," Pearson said.
There's a little bit of both public and private in our celebration, of course. I celebrate singing cowboys, sportswriters whose prose sang, and athletes who gave back to the community more than they got out not only because of what they did publicly but because of the values expressed in what they were privately. Their expressed values tell me much about their persons.
I celebrate the life of my college classmate because of who I knew her to be, not because of anything she did.
To me that's the true value of obituaries, celebrating the person and what he or she valued. Anything other, and the tributes in print become merely another form of tiring celebrity journalism.
Newspapers have barely begun to tap the potential for celebrating community life in obituaries.
Allan R. Andrews can be contacted at allan.andrews@reporters.net
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