The hardest part is rarely remembering the dates.
Someone at the kitchen table knows where Dad was born. Another person remembers the year Mom graduated. Somebody finds the marriage date. A cousin knows the name of the company where Grandpop worked for thirty years.
Then everyone reaches the harder question.
How do you put a whole person into a few paragraphs?
An obituary needs facts, but facts alone rarely sound like the person everyone is mourning. A list of schools, jobs, relatives, and memberships tells readers what someone did. It does not always tell them who showed up forty minutes early to every family party, who never missed a Phillies game, who made Sunday gravy without measuring anything, or who called every grandchild on their birthday before breakfast.
The goal is not to write the most polished obituary anyone has ever read. The goal is to write something recognizable.
Someone who knew the person should finish reading and think, “Yes. That sounds like them.”
Start With Facts, But Do Not Stop There
A good obituary usually begins with the basic information readers need.
Include the person’s full name, age, place of residence, date of death, and sometimes place of death if the family wishes to share it. Many families also mention whether the death was peaceful, unexpected, surrounded by family, or followed a long illness.
From there, move into the person’s life.
Where were they born? Who were their parents? Where did they grow up? What schools did they attend? What work mattered to them? Did they serve in the military? Were they active in a parish, synagogue, church, community organization, union, club, volunteer group, or neighborhood association?
The Remembering A Life guide to writing an obituary or death notice recommends gathering information from several areas of a person’s life, including childhood, education, relationships, professional accomplishments, community involvement, faith, interests, and the impact they had on other people.
That gives you the bones of the obituary.
The personality comes next.
Ask One Question Before You Begin Writing
Before drafting the first paragraph, ask everyone at the table:
“What made this person different from anybody else?”
The answers are often better than anything found in a template.
Maybe everyone says she fed people.
Maybe he was the person neighbors called when something broke.
Maybe she remembered every birthday.
Maybe he complained about every Eagles game and watched the next one anyway.
Maybe she was quiet until someone needed help.
Maybe he told the same five stories for thirty years and everyone would give anything to hear one of them again.
Those details give you a direction.
If five people describe someone as generous, do not simply write, “He was a generous man.” Show what generosity looked like.
Did he clear snow from three neighbors’ sidewalks before touching his own? Did she send everyone home with leftovers? Did he quietly pay dues for a younger member of the club who was struggling?
A specific detail does more work than a broad adjective.
Use a Simple Obituary Structure
You do not need to invent the format from scratch.
A useful structure begins with the death announcement, then moves through the person’s background, work and family life, personality and interests, surviving and deceased relatives, and service information.
Think of it as six basic pieces.
1. The Announcement
State the person’s name, age, home community, and date of death. Keep this opening clear.
2. The Beginning of the Story
Share where the person was born, parents’ names when appropriate, childhood community, education, military service, or other early details that shaped their life.
3. Work, Family, Faith, and Community
Explain where the person spent their time and what mattered to them. A career deserves mention if it was important, but so does raising a family, volunteering at church, coaching youth sports, caring for relatives, or being the unofficial mayor of the block.
4. The Part That Sounds Like Them
This is where you add personality. Mention habits, sayings, favorite places, food, teams, hobbies, traditions, humor, or the small acts people will miss.
5. Family Names
List close surviving relatives and, when desired, important relatives who died before them. Check spelling carefully. This section is where small mistakes often happen because there are many names involved.
6. Service Information
Include visitation, funeral, memorial, Mass, burial, or celebration information when the obituary is being published before the service. If the family requests memorial donations, include the organization and instructions.
Do Not Turn a Life Into a Résumé
One of the easiest mistakes is writing an obituary that reads like a LinkedIn profile.
Education matters. Career matters. Awards matter.
They are not always what the family remembers most.
A man might have been an accountant for forty years, but his children remember that he never allowed anyone to leave his house without checking their tires. A woman might have had an impressive nursing career, while her grandchildren remember Friday night sleepovers and the bowl of candy she pretended not to know they were taking from.
Include accomplishments, then connect them to the person.
Instead of:
“Mary worked as a teacher for 38 years.”
Try:
“Mary taught elementary school for 38 years and still remembered former students decades later, often stopping parents in the supermarket to ask how their children were doing.”
The second version gives the career meaning.
Cut the Clichés Unless They Truly Fit
Obituaries often fall into familiar language because families are writing under pressure.
“Never met a stranger.”
“Would give you the shirt off his back.”
“Lit up every room.”
“Loved life to the fullest.”
“An angel on Earth.”
None of these phrases is wrong. The problem is that they have been used for thousands of different people.
If a phrase sounds like it belongs to almost anyone, replace it with something belonging specifically to your person.
Instead of writing that someone “never met a stranger,” explain that she learned the names of every cashier at Acme and knew which one had a daughter starting college.
Instead of saying someone “loved sports,” write that he scheduled Sunday dinner around the Eagles and refused to change seats during a winning drive.
Instead of “she loved her family,” show what that love looked like.
She called every night. She hosted Christmas. She sat through every school concert. She kept every report card. She made enough food for twice the number of people expected.
Specificity sounds like a person. Clichés sound like an obituary.
Let Other People Help Before You Draft
One person rarely knows every part of another person’s life.
A spouse knows one version. Children know another. Siblings remember childhood. Coworkers remember work. Friends remember stories the family has never heard.
Before writing, send a simple message to a few people:
“What is one thing you always think of when you think about Dad?”
Or:
“What story about Mom should be included?”
You do not need twenty responses. Three or four often reveal a pattern.
If everyone mentions the same habit, phrase, place, or quality, it belongs in the obituary.
Obituary and Eulogy Are Not the Same Thing
Families often gather the same material for both, but the two pieces serve different purposes.
An obituary is a written public record and announcement. It gives readers important facts, identifies family relationships, shares service information, and preserves a brief account of the person’s life.
A eulogy is spoken at the funeral or memorial and has more freedom to focus on stories, emotions, character, and what the loss means to the people gathered.
The Remembering A Life guide to writing a meaningful eulogy recommends gathering stories and anecdotes that illustrate character, values, accomplishments, and lessons learned from the person who died.
That same exercise improves an obituary.
The difference is editing. A story taking three minutes to tell aloud might become two sentences in an obituary.
Paid Newspaper Notice Versus Online Obituary
This distinction matters because families often assume the same version needs to appear everywhere.
It does not.
A newspaper death notice is typically a paid placement. Depending on the publication, price often rises with length, formatting, photographs, or other options. That creates a practical reason to keep the newspaper version concise.
The newspaper notice might include the person’s name, age, family information, a short description of their life, funeral details, and a direction to the full online obituary.
An online obituary gives the family much more room.
You can include a longer life story, photographs, personal details, hobbies, extended family information, community involvement, and other memories without squeezing an entire life into the limits of a paid newspaper notice.
Remembering A Life specifically suggests considering a shorter newspaper version and placing the longer obituary online when print cost is a concern.
John F. Fluehr & Sons maintains online obituaries for Northeast Philadelphia families, giving families a lasting place to share more of a loved one’s story beyond the shorter information often used in a newspaper notice.
Write the Long Version First
If you plan to use both print and online versions, start long.
Write everything worth considering. Include the stories. Include the family history. Add the hobbies, neighborhood details, military service, parish involvement, favorite places, and personality.
Then create the newspaper notice by trimming.
This is easier than trying to expand a short notice later when everyone is tired.
The online version becomes the fuller record. The newspaper version becomes the announcement directing people toward the essential information.
Be Careful With Sensitive Information
An obituary is public.
Before publishing, review whether every detail belongs online.
Avoid information creating unnecessary privacy or security concerns. Think carefully before publishing a precise home address. If relatives have complicated relationships, decide together how names will be handled before submitting the obituary.
Also double check dates, spellings, maiden names, military information, organization names, church names, and service times.
One person should read the obituary only for accuracy, not style.
Another should read it for tone.
Both jobs matter.
You Do Not Have to Pretend Someone Was Perfect
An obituary does not need to turn a real person into a saint.
People are complicated. Families are complicated.
If someone was stubborn, famously opinionated, private, demanding, eccentric, or impossible to beat in an argument, there are ways to acknowledge personality with affection rather than pretending those traits never existed.
“Frank held strong opinions on nearly everything and was always prepared to explain them.”
That sentence might make an entire family laugh because everyone knows exactly what it means.
Honesty creates recognition.
The goal is kindness, not fiction.
Read the Obituary Out Loud
Before submitting anything, read it aloud at the kitchen table.
You will hear problems your eyes skipped.
A sentence might be too long. A phrase might sound formal in a way the person never was. Two paragraphs might repeat the same idea. A family member might immediately notice a missing detail.
Then ask the most important question again:
“Does this sound like them?”
If the answer is no, add one detail only they would have owned.
A favorite saying.
A Saturday routine.
A neighborhood restaurant.
A lifelong team.
A recipe.
A habit everyone teased them about.
Often one sentence changes the entire piece.
Planning Ahead Makes This Easier for Families
Some obituary work starts long before a death.
Families who record parents’ stories, military history, employment, education, family names, religious affiliations, and important dates give themselves a tremendous head start.
Older adults also have an opportunity to tell their own stories while they are able to answer questions directly.
Where did you meet Mom?
What was your first job?
Which accomplishment mattered most?
What do you want the grandchildren to remember?
Which details should never be left out?
Fluehr’s planning resources for Northeast Philadelphia families bring together information for people planning ahead as well as families handling the practical and emotional questions that follow a death.
Writing down basic biographical information now means fewer people searching through drawers and guessing at dates later.
The Best Obituary Gives People Someone to Recognize
A good obituary does not need literary language.
It needs truth, detail, and enough personality for the person to appear on the page.
Start with the facts. Ask family members for stories. Cut phrases that sound generic. Keep the newspaper version practical if cost matters. Give the online version more room. Check every name and date. Read the finished piece aloud.
Then add the detail everyone at the kitchen table knows belongs there.
Maybe Dad kept a radio beside him for every Phillies game.
Maybe Grandmom never arrived anywhere without food.
Maybe Mom knew everybody on the block.
Maybe Pop’s answer to every problem started with, “Give me five minutes.”
Those are not small details.
They are often the details people miss most.
The team at John F. Fluehr & Sons is here for your whole family and includes its youngest members. Call us at (215) 624-5150.
