Writing the obituary for a funeral program

How it differs from the newspaper obituary

An obituary in a newspaper or on a funeral home's website does a public job. It tells people who may not have heard that the person has died, and it gives them what they need: when and where the service will be, the family's names, and where to send a gift in the person's memory.

The obituary in the program is read by the people who have come to the service, and the service details are printed on another panel of the same program. So this version can leave the arrangements out and spend its words on the person. It can be shorter, and warmer.

About 150 to 300 words fits one panel of a folded program, fewer if a photograph shares it. A longer one is not a problem. Up to about 500 words still fits the single folded sheet when the order of service shares the inside. If you make the program here, the obituary has its own step, and one longer than that flows onto an extra inside sheet. If you have already written the newspaper version, you can cut it down to the life story and the family. Or write the program's version first, and build the longer one from it. There is more about how the panels fit together in what to put in a funeral program.

A simple structure

An obituary for a program can follow five parts, in this order, most of them a sentence or two:

1. Who they were. An opening line that sounds like them, not only their name.
2. The dates and places. The shape of the life: where they grew up, a marriage, a move. Years are enough.
3. Work and what they loved. The job, and the things they gave their time to: the garden, the choir, the grandchildren, the fishing.
4. The family. Who survives them, and who died before them. "Survived by" and "preceded in death by", or "predeceased by", are the usual phrases. Start with the closest family: a husband, wife or partner, then children, then grandchildren.
5. A closing line. A last sentence to carry out of the room: something they often said, or something they would want.

A worked example

Walter Hale's obituary, from one of the example families used across these guides, follows that order in three paragraphs.

Walter James Hale was born in the spring of 1941 in a house two streets from the harbour, and he never lived further from the water than that. He apprenticed at the Cross Street boatyard at sixteen and stayed for forty-three years, the last twenty as its foreman. Boats he built are still working the bay.

The first paragraph does three jobs at once. It says who he was, a man of the water. It gives the dates and places, with a season and a year rather than a date of birth, and a house near the water rather than an address. And it gives his work, ending on a detail that is still true today.

He married Margaret in 1963. They raised three children within sight of the water, and he taught every one of them, and later every grandchild, to row before they could ride a bicycle. He fished at dawn most mornings of his life, and was known to describe a poor catch as a good morning anyway.

The second paragraph is about what he loved: his family, the water and the early mornings. Its small details carry his voice. Anyone who knew him will recognize the man who called a poor catch a good morning, and a list of hobbies could not have done that.

He is survived by Margaret, his wife of sixty-three years, his children David, Anne and Peter, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. He was steady, kind and unhurried, and he would want you to go out on the water this week.

The last paragraph names the family by first name and counts the grandchildren rather than listing them. Then it closes with a line spoken to the reader. The whole obituary is 151 words, at the short end of the range.

When someone close died first, one sentence is enough. Harold Pruitt's obituary, from another of the example families, says: "He was predeceased by his wife, Mary, in 2019."

Finding their voice

The details that make an obituary sound like one person are usually small. "Generous" and "hardworking" are true of a great many people. A habit, a saying or a single scene is true of one, as in these lines from the other example families:

• Rosa Delgado, a schoolteacher: "She kept every class photograph, and could name every child in them."
• June Alvarez, a nurse: "The gingerbread house was built on the twentieth of December, and it was always, in her words, structurally unsound and delicious."
• Harold Pruitt, a parish stalwart: "…the many people at Sacred Heart who called him Mr. Pruitt long after he asked them to stop."

To find details like these, ask a few people for one story each, or for a phrase the person used. Their own words, where you have them, are worth more than any description.

A little humor belongs if they had it, as in the gingerbread house. Write the way you would speak about them to a friend, in plain words, and read it aloud once. A sentence that trips you up will trip up the people reading it too.

What to leave out

A program is handed to everyone who comes and carried home, and its words may also go to a newspaper, a website or a memorial page. Some details are better left out of the obituary, wherever it appears.

• The home address. AARP advises leaving it out. When an obituary also gives the date and time of the funeral, burglars can break into a house that is likely to be empty during the service, and a program gives the date and time on another panel.
• The details identity thieves use. AARP lists the date and place of birth, the middle name, the maiden name and the mother's maiden name. The mother's maiden name matters in particular, since many accounts use it as a security question. The year of birth is enough.
• Relatives' full names. New York State's Division of Consumer Protection includes family members' full names among the details to be careful with. First names do the work, as they do in Walter's obituary.

Walter's obituary follows most of this: a season and a year, a house near the water, and first names for the family. It keeps his middle name, which AARP's list would leave out, and his program gives his full dates under his name on the cover. How far to go is a judgment for each family, and the fewer of these details appear anywhere in the program, the less there is for anyone to misuse.

Before it prints

Ask two people to read the obituary before it goes into the program: one who knew the person well, to check the facts, and one a step removed, to catch the mistakes that tired eyes pass over. Check every name and its spelling, every year, and every number, such as the count of grandchildren.

Then read it in place, on a printed copy, where guests will read it. The panel needs a heading too, such as "Remembering Walter" or "A Life Well Lived"; there are more in funeral program wording, section by section. Thanks to a hospice or to kind neighbors can go in the obituary, or in the family's note on the back page, and there are examples of that note in acknowledgment wording for a funeral program.