Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to short stuff. This is Josh,
Speaker 1: there's Chuck, there's Jerry. We're gonna talk about death, the natural,
Speaker 1: super hip thing to do. And there's Dave Ruse in
Speaker 1: a bottle with a cork on top, screaming, let me
Speaker 1: out right. That was weird, but I loved it. Yeah, Dave.
Speaker 1: Dave helps us out with the longer form stuff. But
Speaker 1: this is one of the old I don't know how old,
Speaker 1: but one of the old house stuff works shorties. Did
Speaker 1: he put together? Yeah? I don't think it was old.
Speaker 1: I think it was new, one of the new. Just
Speaker 1: mean the old website old you gotta say it like that,
Speaker 1: then the old with any Yeah, the oldie. We sure
Speaker 1: wasted a lot of time. Good. So Chuck, we're talking obituaries,
Speaker 1: that's right. Do you read these? Um Probably not because
Speaker 1: you're under eight. No, yeah, no, I know, but people
Speaker 1: do love him. Yeah, it's interesting that I read that
Speaker 1: um on. Oh. I think Beyond the Dash is what
Speaker 1: it was called, which is great because you know the
Speaker 1: dash between the date of birth and the date of death,
Speaker 1: there's a dash between them. There's a website, an obituary
Speaker 1: website called Beyond the Dash and they said, in obituaries
Speaker 1: like your final gift to a loved one, you're celebrating
Speaker 1: their life for all to see and read. Or if
Speaker 1: you're one of those weirdos who reads obituaries for those
Speaker 1: people to read and see. Yeah, I think, uh, I
Speaker 1: think it's long been like elderly people read obituaries. The
Speaker 1: joke is sort of the you know, because they're not
Speaker 1: in them. Man, when when ages m becomes a real
Speaker 1: thing in like ten years, this this episode is not
Speaker 1: going to aged already a thing, a real thing. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Yeah, but they have always
Speaker 1: well they've they've changed a lot over the years, um,
Speaker 1: which is sort of interesting. And this uh one of
Speaker 1: the I mean, we're going to plug the genealogy website now, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's a genealogy website though that has apparently you can
Speaker 1: learn a lot about your genealogy just from researching obituaries
Speaker 1: because they list so many people in the family. It's
Speaker 1: like a family tree there. Yeah yeah, so um. And
Speaker 1: then even obituary websites and genealogy websites, they've unleashed a
Speaker 1: I on these things, and the bots have really had
Speaker 1: a field day coming up with oh, bits dating back
Speaker 1: as far as I can see to the seventeen fifties,
Speaker 1: at least in the United States. Yeah, this one genealogy
Speaker 1: website has uh two hundred and sixty two million published
Speaker 1: obituaries online. Yeah, see if you can figure out which
Speaker 1: one it is. Yeah, I guess so. But um, so
Speaker 1: the bots have kind of they've they've said, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: from what we've been able to ascertain, at least from
Speaker 1: digitized newspaper records going back to the mid eighteenth century,
Speaker 1: bits weren't a very big thing unless you were famous,
Speaker 1: very Yeah, that's a really good point. Yeah, the deaths
Speaker 1: of famous, well known, successful people have always intrigued us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think you might might have told me that
Speaker 1: obituaries were pre written for a lot of people, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like the New York Times, oh bits, you know, like
Speaker 1: the real deal ones. Yeah. Um, I think you told
Speaker 1: me that a couple of years ago or something, and
Speaker 1: I was just astonished. I definitely knew that. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: sounds like something I would tell you probably, and it's
Speaker 1: not made up over or afternoon tea. Right, but they'll
Speaker 1: they'll just have like an no bit going on somebody
Speaker 1: and then when they finally die, they can get it
Speaker 1: out the door really quick, just by kind of summing
Speaker 1: up at the end, he's filling that last beyond the dash.
Speaker 1: And maybe if they did anything noteworthy in the last
Speaker 1: like eight months of their life, they didn't. What I
Speaker 1: wonder is do they Uh? Is it just for old
Speaker 1: people or people that they think like a risky I wonder,
Speaker 1: you know, we'll have to ask Jeremy Piven. I don't
Speaker 1: get that right. He played an obituary writer in One
Speaker 1: in Something. Was he an obituary writer who was a
Speaker 1: big jerk? Probably is? He got specializes in those roles
Speaker 1: he does. Interesting. So mid nineteenth century, uh, you started
Speaker 1: seeing this change from just famous types to regular old
Speaker 1: people getting their local paper usually to publish sort of
Speaker 1: stripped down obituaries. Yeah. It was called the death notice.
Speaker 1: It was basically superstriped town. Yeah, this person died and
Speaker 1: that's that. There's still death notices around today. And apparently
Speaker 1: if you're into obituaries so much that, um, you will
Speaker 1: publish a death notice. What you're saying is it's basically
Speaker 1: like a hold the date for more information about the funeral.
Speaker 1: They still do those today, But that was what obituaries
Speaker 1: were Originally it was just you know, the person's name
Speaker 1: they died, maybe who they were survived by, maybe a
Speaker 1: little bit about the funeral. But the reason o bits
Speaker 1: were so thin originally was because back in the day
Speaker 1: before the Lena type was invented, and I think the
Speaker 1: eighteen eighties, when you put a newspaper together, every page,
Speaker 1: every letter of every word of every sentence of every
Speaker 1: line of every page LINGO, thank you um was set
Speaker 1: by hand, by hand, yeah, every letter. So that's why
Speaker 1: certain obituaries just had a name and died right exactly
Speaker 1: with the date, maybe and you were you felt lucky
Speaker 1: to even been mentioned. Probably. But then Lena type came
Speaker 1: along and they said, hey, we've got a lot it's
Speaker 1: a lot easier to make a newspaper. Now, let's make
Speaker 1: more newspaper every day. So maybe we'll take a quick
Speaker 1: break and we'll come back and talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about obituaries. You you want to know, you're in luck,
Speaker 1: just chuck, Hey, chuck, let's talk a little bit more
Speaker 1: about obituary. Yeah. I mean, there's certain things like the
Speaker 1: Civil War obviously would ramp up the death notices, like
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of these going out every year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this was even before the lenotype too, right. I
Speaker 1: think because they were soldiers, they felt like they needed
Speaker 1: to do do so, even though it was a pain.
Speaker 1: Plus also, there seems to have been a real increase
Speaker 1: in fascination with death among the Victorians. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's when they were taking bereavement photography. You know,
Speaker 1: they were holding funerals at home. But they became much
Speaker 1: more elaborate over time. Yeah. Well, what really changed was
Speaker 1: the newspapers discovered that they could charge people money to
Speaker 1: get a loved one listed in an obituary column, and
Speaker 1: they could make some dough on it, and then it
Speaker 1: became a real thing. They made fat stacks is everyone
Speaker 1: called it. In two thousand eleven. These stats are pretty amazing, though,
Speaker 1: From nineteen hundred, four hundred thousand obituaries in nineteen hundred
Speaker 1: and then, uh, and that's from two million total newspapers.
Speaker 1: By the nineteen thirties, there were one point to five
Speaker 1: million obituaries in about two and a half million total pages. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so obituaries themselves in number exploded because they were mecondoh right,
Speaker 1: but they also the amount of the newspaper that they
Speaker 1: represented exploded to and from a fifth to a half
Speaker 1: of all pages were obituaries. Really, yeah, that's that's I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's usually wrong, but I'll bet it's close one point
Speaker 1: to five million obituaries and two and a half million pages.
Speaker 1: That's half right down the middle on the middle. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this is where in the thirties and forties is
Speaker 1: where you start to see that sort of classic obituary
Speaker 1: notice that we know today not just died, sorry, but stuff.
Speaker 1: It's it's a four part thing, the death announcement, a
Speaker 1: little bit of a bio who they're survived by, and
Speaker 1: then a little bit of the funeral info. Right, And
Speaker 1: it didn't have to be like one paragraph each, but
Speaker 1: I mean like it was in those segments. Sometimes the
Speaker 1: middle bio part was extensive, depending on what they've done,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes the survived by was bigger than other
Speaker 1: times like that. That's that sweet story about that veteran
Speaker 1: who died in Florida, I think a couple of months ago,
Speaker 1: and he outlived all of his family, and somebody got
Speaker 1: word of it and it became like a viral thing
Speaker 1: and tens I think like ten thousand people showed up
Speaker 1: for his funeral, to make sure that he was seen off,
Speaker 1: that he wasn't forgotten. What is your obituary, say, I
Speaker 1: assume you have pre written it. First of all, it
Speaker 1: just says died, died. Yeah, I've pre written it on
Speaker 1: draft like six or seven. Yeah, No, I have not.
Speaker 1: Have you now yours? I haven't even thought of mine.
Speaker 1: I'm still l I V I N. Alright, alright, alright,
Speaker 1: So this is where the genealogy comes in, and that
Speaker 1: now you've got spouse's name, children's names, married names of daughters, grandchildren.
Speaker 1: I mean you might see cousins if it's noteworthy, or
Speaker 1: even even if it's not, if that's what the family
Speaker 1: wants in there. Right, Because so the obituary, as Ruse
Speaker 1: puts it as a quasi legal document. A lot of
Speaker 1: people think you have to buy law, publish this in
Speaker 1: the newspaper. You don't. You do, by law have to
Speaker 1: file for a death certificate like we talked about in
Speaker 1: the home burials short stuff. But you don't have to
Speaker 1: publish it an obituary. But it's still definitely lets the
Speaker 1: community know, hey, this person died, if you happen to um,
Speaker 1: if this person happened to owe your money. It's about
Speaker 1: to say, here's your chance to come, you know, make
Speaker 1: your claim against the estate or whatever. So it does
Speaker 1: serve some sort of function, but it's not like a
Speaker 1: law that you have to publish an obituary. But but
Speaker 1: it is up to the funeral home typically to publish
Speaker 1: the obituary or contact the local newspaper. But the family
Speaker 1: gives all the info that they want included in it,
Speaker 1: and they're the ones who are footing the bill. I
Speaker 1: think it's usually charged by line. So if you want
Speaker 1: to include cousins, sure, but you know it's going to
Speaker 1: cost you an extra eight cents second cousin Eddie really
Speaker 1: worth it? Yeah? Uh? And then things changed again really
Speaker 1: after nine eleven, apparently when the obituaries became much more
Speaker 1: personal and these great stories started coming out about the
Speaker 1: people who died on nine eleven. And I think that's
Speaker 1: sort of, at least according to the people that they
Speaker 1: quote in this article, said that that kind of changed
Speaker 1: things all over the country and people started being a
Speaker 1: lot more honest and maybe funny and making them real memorials,
Speaker 1: but also, like I said, being honest and not brushing
Speaker 1: things under the rug um, like if someone suffered from
Speaker 1: depression and died by suicide. They wouldn't just put a
Speaker 1: vague died suddenly at home. Yeah, exactly what they used
Speaker 1: to say. Yeah, and I'm sure some of them still do.
Speaker 1: But I think there's a trend towards honesty and openness
Speaker 1: now more so for sure. And and apparently according to
Speaker 1: Susan Soaper, who is an obituary expert as far as
Speaker 1: Dave Ruse is concerned, she said that that was probably
Speaker 1: what turned the tide, that that September eleven narrative obituary thing.
Speaker 1: Did you read about that last thing about the saying
Speaker 1: that the deceased will not be missed in some cases?
Speaker 1: Whose was that? Was that just one? As far as
Speaker 1: I could tell, it was just one. But a few
Speaker 1: years back there was a woman um whose children, whose
Speaker 1: adult children, UM said that the world would be better
Speaker 1: off without her, or the world is now better off
Speaker 1: without her, and she will not be missed. She she
Speaker 1: really jilted them as children and they had never forgiven
Speaker 1: her for it, and caused a huge outcry backlash, and
Speaker 1: actually everyone sympathized with the dead woman, not the kids,
Speaker 1: and not the kids. The kids were taken as like
Speaker 1: little monsters who could not, who couldn't forgive their mom.
Speaker 1: But it was a huge deal and it really kind
Speaker 1: of said a lot about how we view the deceased
Speaker 1: and their last you know send off. You know, just
Speaker 1: how how many warts should you show? Right? And like,
Speaker 1: even if that was I don't know, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: take a side. But even if that's the case, is
Speaker 1: it is it gratifying to give mom a finger on
Speaker 1: the way out the door? Yeah? I don't know, I don't.
Speaker 1: You'd have to ask those kids not They were very um,
Speaker 1: they were probably very surprised at the international backlash that
Speaker 1: it garnered. Interesting. Well, that's a f obituaries, Chuck, Yes,
Speaker 1: that means short Stuff is out. Stuff you should Know
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