Death steals everything except our stories. Those were the words of a poet and storyteller named Jim Harrison who happened to have died while writing a poem. A friend found him on the floor where he had collapsed, pen on the floor, and a sheet of paper bearing his last attempt to write scribbled in an unreadable jumble. His personal stories survive, and what a grand time they tell while he was living.
We relate that story, morbid as it seems, somewhat in relation to a book I am reading. It came to my attention when paging through the recent alumni magazine of UND. James R. Hagerty graduated from that school and succeeded in the business world as a journalist writing for the Wall Street Journal. After some years had passed, the management decided they needed an obituary writer and handed the job to him. He proceeded to earn a reputation by being good at it. Thus the article appeared featuring him in the alumni magazine.
In case that name Hagerty in Grand Forks seems familiar, you might recall the name Marilyn Hagerty who became somewhat famous as a food critic of area restaurants. She happens to be the mother of James. He said about her that "She doesn't like to say anything bad" in her reviews, and "If she writes more about the décor than the food, you might want to eat somewhere else."
The first line in his book’s introduction - Yours Truly: The Obituary Writer’s Guide to Telling Your Story - states the gist of the book. He said, “Someday the story of your life will be written; the only question is how well or badly it will be written.”
We’ll follow that up with a few humorous bits from obituaries. “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!”
“John Doe escaped this mortal realm on Friday, July 29, 2016 at the age of 69. We think he did it on purpose to avoid having to make a decision in the pending presidential election.
“Frank Doe is a dead person, he is no more, he is bereft of life, he is deceased, he has wrung down the curtain and gone to join the choir invisible, he has expired and gone to meet his maker. Survived by his wife she will now be able to purchase the mink coat which he had always refused her. There will be no viewing since his wife refuses to honour his request to have him standing in the corner of the room with a glass of Jack Daniels in his hand so that he would appear natural to visitors.”
Most obituaries published today are usually penned with a loving hand by members of the family, and we won’t speak in negative terms about them. What Hagerty seems to be saying is maybe the writers could go just a bit further.
On the “Find a Grave” website (findagrave.com) can be found a cemetery that interests me, i.e. the Sheldon cemetery. Someone did what looks to be a comprehensive count of the gravesites and numbered them at 832 individuals. I’ve scanned a lot of them and found their life stories very rare. It takes a slow search of old newspapers to find obituaries written at the time of their death. Some might be found at Chronicling America under the search term loc.gov, but that can also be a slow process.
Some of the deceased, maybe all, of their life stories beg to be narrated. If they’ve been gone two or three generations nobody might remember them at all, and all we look at are names and dates. But according to the historian Doris Kearns stories keep people alive. Of course, the Find a Grave website did not exist when many of the people passed so we have to rely on an obituary printed in a local paper. Anyone who knew that person has passed, too.
I have collected a few death notices in the local paper that caught my eye and gave me pause to stop and consider their historical significance. For instance, an obituary carried this headline in 1909: “Sheldon Shafer’s Sufferings Over.” A secondary line stated, “Was First Child Born in This Town and Had Lived Here all His Life.” For my curious mind that was interesting and prompted my finding his gravestone.
One clipped headline proclaimed “J. T. Hickey, Reno’s Freighter Died Suddenly Last Friday.” Wow! I know something about Reno, Major Reno that is, he was at the battle where Custer and his cavalry were cut down at The Little Big Horn. Custer had divided his command into three units, his own, Captain Benteen’s, and Major Reno’s. It was Custer’s men who lost their lives that day, and the other two were elsewhere. Luckily for our local Mr. Hickey, he was a freighter with Reno and ended up in Sheldon running a livery stable.
One final example is that of a local businessman named Chauncey Durgin. His death occurred in 1917. He had located in Sheldon thirty-four years previously. His claim to fame developed when he built the Sheldon Opera House which became a popular amusement place for dancing, roller skating, and receptions in Ransom County. Unwritten stories still circulate among the locals of why he was buried in an isolated grave on the west side of the cemetery. But later years have erased the stigma of that spot since many have come to join him there on the west side.
Someday I hope to write my own obituary. Maybe I will use language like a friend used to describe the aforementioned Jim Harrison: “His head looks as though it belongs on the end of something a Viking would use to knock down a medieval Danish gate.” But then, maybe I won’t.
