Several weeks ago, my Uncle Ron came by our house one evening and brought me a box of old photos, post cards, and letters that had been my grandfather’s. Ron’s wife, my Aunt Barbara, passed away in 2014 and had held on to these things after her parents (my grandparents) passed away. Ron has recently moved and was going through all he has and decided that these things needed to be passed to a descendant of my grandfather’s family, so he brought them to me.
I started to go through everything, and honestly, I don’t know who most of the people are in the photographs, but I have tried to piece together a bit of a genealogy. Embarrassingly, I haven’t previously known much about my family beyond my grandparents so going through some of the mementos that my grandfather saved over the years about his family was enlightening.
One of the items in the box of memories was an envelope with my great grandmother’s name and address on it, along with a stamp and post mark from 1939. The return address was for the Newspaper Printing Corporation. At first, I thought it must be an old letter, but when I opened it, it was filled with yellowing newspaper clippings of dozens of obituaries.
I read through all of them, getting pretty depressed. There were a few horribly tragic ones, the worse of which was a column about the death of two siblings, ages 8 months and 3 years old, that passed a few weeks within each other. And the article mentioned that the 8-month-old had also been a twin whose fellow twin had previously died. I think these were cousins of my grandfather or children of one of his cousins. The article had spiritual musings and offered words of comfort to the family, but even though this news was well over 70 years old, it still made me tear up a bit. Another newspaper clipping was not an obituary, but a news article about a man who had been sentenced to an insane asylum for the stabbing and killing of multiple co-workers who were working with him on a tugboat. I realized why my grandfather had saved the article when I saw the victims’ names- one of them was a 28-year-old cousin of my grandfather.
Obviously, reading dozens of obituaries back-to-back is not exactly the lightest of reading. Some of the photographs in the box were dated over a hundred years ago. Looking though small glimpses of the lives of these ancestors, it was hard to not be once more struck with the overwhelming notion of how quickly life passes and that it is marked by constant loss and sorrow the more we travel through it.
But amongst the dreary obituaries, there were glimmers of inspiration.
“A member of the Church of Christ since about 26 years ago, when she was baptized by her brother mentioned, she was faithful in the discharge of duties as a Christian woman of high ideals of character, beloved by many friends throughout her home community.”- excerpted from 1933 obituary
“She was a devout Christian character, a member of the Church of Christ the greater part of her long and useful life, and many friends sorrow with the bereaved family in their loss at her death.”- excerpted from 1930 obituary
“Lived a consistent Christian life to the end.”- excerpted from 1930 obituary
“Had been a member of the Church of Christ since girlhood, and throughout her life of noble womanhood was greatly beloved by many who sorrow at her passing from life.”- excerpted from 1936 obituary
“He willingly made many sacrifices in going in the interest of the glorious cause of our heavenly father…The different times I visited his home during his afflictions, his conversation was concerning the church and the heavenly things that he had advocated, and he was sure they were God’s eternal truths.”- excerpted from 1933 obituary
Reading the glowing words of praise in these obituaries reminded me of the New York Times article by David Brooks that made the internet rounds several years back. It was entitled “The Moral Bucket List” and it explores the qualities of “eulogy virtues” versus “resume virtues”. It was shared and discussed by bloggers, and it resonated with many readers who felt that they, like the author, needed to work on building those “eulogy virtues” instead of spending all their time and energies building the fleeting “resume virtues”.
“It occurred to me that there were two sets of virtues, the résumé virtues and the eulogy virtues. The résumé virtues are the skills you bring to the marketplace. The eulogy virtues are the ones that are talked about at your funeral — whether you were kind, brave, honest or faithful. Were you capable of deep love?
We all know that the eulogy virtues are more important than the résumé ones. But our culture and our educational systems spend more time teaching the skills and strategies you need for career success than the qualities you need to radiate that sort of inner light. Many of us are clearer on how to build an external career than on how to build inner character.”
Culture may not be a good teacher for building inner character, but a good family can be. Reading the obituaries of ancestors who lived long before me, I was struck by the influence that these people had on me and my life. I may not have known them, but they shaped the people who went on to shape me.
I know that I am luckier than many people in being a part of a family that did help to impart the knowledge of “eulogy virtues” and their worth over “resume virtues.” I have a huge respect for people who didn’t have that early teacher, but still go on to do the work by themselves of building inner character.
Reading the obituaries, most of them from almost 100 years ago, it’s interesting to see how the style and language has changed over the years for obituaries. There were actually two different obituaries for my great-great grandmother, and it looks like one may have been written by a family member and one by newspaper staff or possibly the funeral home. It was striking because there were numerous typos and incorrect names in one of them. It had been the first of the two I came across, and at first I had trouble figuring out the relationships until I found the second clipping because my great grandmother’s name was completely wrong in the first. Another obituary for my great-great grandmother’s sister had her birth year as 1950. But unless she died in 2036 instead of 1936, I think they meant she was born in 1850.
Obituaries have evolved over time from simple death announcements to more personal portraits of people who have passed on. Some historians credit a shift from simpler obituaries to more personal ones at the start of the 21st century after September 11th. The New York Times published obituaries for each of the nearly 3000 victims that told their stories beyond just a death notice. Going forward, many people began to copy this style.
Of course, just because someone writes a glowing summary of our life, doesn’t necessarily mean we have the inner character to back it up. People can exaggerate or instill virtues in lost loved ones that weren’t really there. And the opposite is true. People of the noblest character can have a “facts only” obituary, or none at all. Early in my career as a nursing home social worker, I was one of the only attendees at more than a few graveside services. For some of these people, maybe decisions they’d made along the way had led to their being alone at the end of life. But for others, they had simply outlived their loved ones and had many years of prolonged illness in a nursing home, and therefore had few friends outside of that institution.
But as far as those “eulogy virtues” go, it doesn’t matter if they are recorded in an obituary or said aloud in a eulogy. Virtue is inside us whether there’s anyone there at the end to remark upon it or not. Better that silence than someone lying about virtue that didn’t exist, or worse, flat out saying that you will not be missed as some do in more brutally honest obituaries.
So, what would the eulogy virtues be that I would want to work on, or the “moral bucket list” as David Brooks put it? He has several good examples of virtues that he feels are important and that inspired me to consider my own.
I thought about that envelope full of obituaries and the legacy of those ancestors. What was the common theme in each of the quotes that stood out to me? Christ centered lives. Focus on heavenly matters. Faith passed onto the next generations.
Life of Christian character encompasses many noble virtues when we truly follow the example of our Lord Jesus. Kindness, humility, generosity, love, self-control and all of the “fruits of the spirit” will naturally follow when we are following Christ’s example. To be someone that whom it can be said of in the end that I exhibited Christ-like qualities would be what my “moral bucket list” would have on it.
Rachel F. Jean 
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