Letter: Published obituary leaves much unsaid
To the Editor:
First of all, I want to say thank you. Thanks for giving me someone to be mad at when I needed it. Being mad helped take the focus off of grief.
I had this editorial all outlined in my mind, but Susan has taken the wind out of my sails by telling me the problem is fixed for the future; but Mom would expect me to go ahead and say what I have to say — so here it is.
My sister and I were extremely upset to find someone sitting in an office at Marion took it upon themselves to rewrite our Mom's obituary. We took time to include what we considered to be the important things in Mom's life and we wanted those things printed. Evidently it was more interesting to this "person" that Mom had worked as a riveter at Boeing for a few years during the war than the fact that she had worked at the hometown grocery (Stovall's, later Wes') for nearly 20 years. (Makes me worried that somewhere down the line someone will write off my 20 plus years at this law firm because it is more interesting that I spent a summer running a jack hammer on a bridge crew.) survivors weren't named and we had especially wanted Darrell, the grandson that Mom helped raise, named in the list of survivors. We took care to get the explicit name of the memorial from the Girl Scouts as it needed to be specifically named to keep the memorial money in Peabody — that also was shortened. And finally, and most important, this person chose to say that our Mom had already been buried — a week before the funeral services were held.
The same obituary was sent to two larger papers. Neither shortened or changed the obituary we had written. The fact remains Peabody was Mom's hometown and this was the paper that really mattered. Reprinting the incomplete version of Mom's obituary didn't fix anything; at least everyone else can rest assured that the Peabody paper has now set up a system in which you will be charged to print the complete obituary of your loved one. We would have gladly paid.
Myrna Wood
P.S. When the person at Marion loses his close loved one, I would like to be the one chosen to rewrite that obituary.
