Obituaries - just for the well-to-do?

[Peregrine Took]

I was looking up an obituary for a person who died recently and couldn't find one for her or her husband who died a few months before her.

This woman was in poor health for a long time, as was he, and I'm pretty sure there wasn't much money there in the end.

I wonder if poor people are just skipping that "nicety" of a printed obituary thinking that everyone close to them already knows they are sick.

[elleng]

1. They do cost,

depending on the length.

[Peregrine Took]

2. Yes, they can be expensive depending on their length.

I suppose they have outlived their original intent.

As I said earlier the people around the deceased already know they are sick (usually) and is it that important to notify people who are no longer in your life especially when money is short?

Perhaps another social nicety that is just falling by the boards.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

3. I wrote a short one for my Gram.. they wanted nearly $300 for a few paragraphs

On the other hand, I wrote a long one (15 paragraphs) for my Mom, and the local papers printed it for free.

Guess which paper is owned by a corporation.

[No Vested Interest]

4. Death notice or obituary?

This is what I understand, though there may be differences in different places, depending on local custom:

A death notice is usually paid for, depending on the number of lines, in a special section of the newspaper.
I have seen instances where the death notice was only a line or two, referring the reader to the funeral homes' site, where more lengthy and detailed substance is provided, presumably included as part of the service provided by the funeral home.

An obituary is provided by the newspaper, without charge, as a news or editorial feature. It may be written by the deceased's family or by a newspaper employee. It may be on the front page or in a section near the death notices.

It may be that the family of the persons you were seeking chose not to have either or did not know the procedures for asking or filing for these. Or they could have been too bereft to pursue it.

In my own experience, the funeral home took the necessary information re relatives and arrangements and placed the death notices. I wrote the obituaries for several in my family and provided it to the newspaper, with my contact information attached. Apparently the newspaper checks with the funeral director (to make sure that the individual has indeed died), called me to verify the information and either printed it as given or rearranged or cut it to suit their space, etc. One asked my questions re the deceased and composed wording and headline that would not have been my choice - a little over the top- but that's the way it worked.

[SheilaT]

5. Different newspapers have different policies.

I've lived in cities where the local paper publishes all (so far as I can tell) death notices of all who die. An obit that runs longer than whatever they declare is the minimum will cost.

My current city, Santa Fe, the local paper only publishes obituaries, which are all paid for. Which means more than once I know for sure that someone has died and never see anything in the paper. I think also that many funeral homes build in the cost of an obituary in their services, which makes it one less thing for survivors to worry about.