Short Stuff: Obituaries

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 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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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 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. 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 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 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. 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, 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

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, 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, 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

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, 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, 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. 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

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 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. 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 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

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 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 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, 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 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

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 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, 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, that means short Stuff is out. Stuff you should Know is a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H m hm