A snippet from another good article in the May 31, 2010 Deseret News:
It’s hard to say where the first obituary came from. The word comes from the Medieval Latin “obitus,” which means a going down, a fall, a ruin, a death.
But obituaries have pretty much always been linked with news.
After the popularization of the printing press in the 1500s, concise death notices began appearing in printed papers. Most contained just the basic facts: name, birth and death dates, cause of death, family who survived and family who died earlier.
In the late 1800s, the editor of The Times of London, John Thadeus Delane, saw great value in the publication of obituaries and thought they should be more than brief announcements. As a result, the obituaries published in his paper were often long and elaborate, containing biographies, short prayers, poems and more.
Following are snips from obits in the late Deseret News Publisher Jim Mortimer’s collection:
- Driving was not her strong suit. She took up two lanes and got tickets for going 20 mph down freeways. The one time she was stopped for speeding, she looked up at the officer — before he waved her on — and said, “Weinstock’s is having a sale!”
- He always said his age was 34 because, although he was 77, his teeth were new.
- He loved his children and called them his “Pearls of Great Price.” He said he didn’t understand the “great price” part until they became teenagers.
- If he was here for us to ask, “What should we do, Dad?” the answer would be predictable: “Don’t call me a Do-Dad.”
