Bob Collins
Larry Potter was a black man in mostly-white Moorhead. For many students, he was the first African American they’d ever encountered. They were glad they did. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Tag: The art of the obituary
Here’s what I learned from yesterday’s radio show on obituaries: Quite a few people have obits of people they didn’t know taped to their refrigerators. Read more →
I’m filling in for Tom Weber at 11 a.m. today on MPR News (91.1 in the Twin Cities). Here are a couple of links I’ll be referring to during the broadcast on obituaries. This is the post I wrote about Stuart Schumacher and his wife, Melissa, who started an effort to help people write obituaries Read more →
In preparation for Monday’s show on the art and culture of obituaries, I recommend today another example of a finely written obit that appeared in today’s Star Tribune. Read more →
Peter DeMarco’s letter to the health care workers who cared for his dying wife went viral two weeks ago, as it should have. His message in today’s column by their friend should too. Read more →
Too often, the story of our amazing lives don’t get told until it appears on the newspaper’s obituary page and Star Tribune reporter Chao Xiong today provides a perfect example.
Read more →
A good obit makes you sad you missed out on meeting a person. Here’s an example.
Read more →
We talk often in this category — The Art of the Obituary — about portraying and defining our lives outside of the jobs we hold. Nineteen year olds don’t have the big jobs that permeate many obituaries. And it didn’t matter a bit in relaying a life well lived. Not a bit. Read more →
Katie Schoener is going to be remembered and buried today in Scranton, Pa., and her family isn’t shy about the circumstances. Read more →
We don’t learn a lot about Dorothy Jetta Mueller in the paragraph, but we learn enough.
Read more →
There is a growing trend in obituary humor that makes anyone tired of politics ask the question, ‘Shouldn’t there be a place that’s campaign free?’ Read more →
Kathleen Errico, of Haverhill, Mass., found her 23-year-old daughter dead of a heroin overdose two weeks ago. In the days that followed, she knew what she had to do. She had to ignore the ‘died suddenly’ code words and write about her daughter’s life the way her daughter’s life was.
So she wrote this.
Read more →
In our growing collection, we’ve read plenty of powerful essays on the nature of mental health, depression, and suicide, but we’re hard pressed to recall one as powerful as that for Aletha Pinnow, who took her own life in Duluth last month.
Read more →
While reading the obituary today of Lucas David Ronnei of Victoria, Minn., we realized where the young man got the courage in his struggle against depression and addiction. It was in his DNA, inherited from a family that wrote one of the most powerful obituaries we’ve ever read.
Read more →
I don’t really know where to begin in assessing this obituary of a woman in North Carolina who died last month at 94. There’s a little bit in there about the life of Wilma Black, but it seems much more aimed at her son.
Read more →