Obits: The Way We Say Goodbye

Trevor S. Raymond is a teacher and librarian with the Peel Board of Education and editor of Canadian Holmes.

Mary Ellen Gillan, a Vancouver writer and lecturer, “has been reading
obituaries for over 20 years”—usually several thousand a year. She
has reviewed major Canadian newspapers for this century and has noted
trends in death notices that reveal such social transformations as the
status of women and the decline of the formal funeral, and other changes
such as the types of diseases that end our lives and the political,
cultural and medical causes for which memorial donations are suggested.

This book collects about 100 obituaries of Canadians “who were not
celebrities,” although a few were well-known in their communities (one
was a descendant of the writer of “Silent Night”). Most are recent
notices “because of the practical problem of tracing survivors,” and
readers are invited to submit for another book last words they have
composed for relatives and friends.

The obits are arranged in three categories: those who died relatively
young; women; and men. A general introduction notes the transition from
the “fill-in-the-blanks” death notice to the more anecdotal
obituary, and discusses formal mourning processes. Each section of the
book has a brief introduction, which in some cases repeats points
already made in the general introduction.