Writing An Obituary For The Quad City Times: What Actually Happens When You Submit One
The Quad City Times runs obituaries for the broader Davenport, Moline, Rock Island, and surrounding communities. When you submit an obit, it goes through a specific process and there are real quirks that most families don't learn until after they've already handed over their money. I've worked with funeral homes and families who've placed these for years, so here's how it actually works and where people get tripped up. First, understand the difference between a death announcement and a full obituary. The paper treats them differently, and the pricing is totally separate. A death announcement is basically a formal notice — name, age, date of passing, surviving family, funeral details. It's short, it's dry, and it's cheaper. A full obituary is narrative. It tells a story about the person's life, career, hobbies, community involvement. That's where the cost jumps significantly because you're paying by the line or by the word depending on how you negotiate it with the funeral home or the paper directly. The submission process usually goes through your funeral director. They have an account with the newspaper and they handle the typesetting. You give them the text, they format it to fit the column width the paper uses, and it goes to print on the schedule they're given. If you're trying to do this yourself without a funeral home, you can call the Quad City Times obituary desk directly, but the wait time and the back-and-forth over formatting details makes that option slower than most people expect.
One thing nobody warns you about is the editing. The paper will edit your obituary for content that doesn't fit their standards. I've seen people submit text with phrases like "passed peacefully in her sleep surrounded by love" and have it cut down to a single line because the editor decided it was filler. The reverse has also happened — I once had a family submit a three-paragraph obituary and the editor expanded it by adding biographical details they pulled from public records that the family didn't originally include. It was technically accurate, but the family was surprised when their mom's obituary mentioned a high school teacher she never actually taught at. Here's the workaround: Always request a proof before it goes to print. The funeral home should send it to you, but if you're doing this independently, call the paper and ask for a galley proof. It usually takes 24 to 48 hours after submission, and if you're not happy with the edits, that's your only window to push back. Most people skip this step and find out too late that their grandmother's favorite hobby got changed from "quilting" to "sewing" because the editor made a judgment call. Cost-wise, you're looking at roughly $150 to $400 for a standard death announcement, and $300 to $800 or more for a full obituary depending on length. Photos run extra — typically $50 to $100 on top. The Quad City Times also runs an online version alongside the print edition, which is actually where most of the traffic ends up now. Your family members who live out of state will almost certainly find the obituary online before they ever see the paper.
A common mistake I see repeatedly is putting the wrong phone number or email for the family to receive condolences. Funeral homes sometimes use their own general contact info instead of a dedicated family line, which means a hundred sympathy messages pile into a voicemail box nobody's checking. Always verify the contact information yourself before it goes to print. It only takes thirty seconds and saves everyone a lot of frustration. If you're working with a tight budget, the death announcement route is perfectly acceptable. It's still a permanent record, it's still searchable, and it still serves the core purpose of letting people know when and where to pay their respects. The narrative obituary is nice to have, but it's not required for the announcement to be valid or useful. Don't let anyone pressure you into spending more than you want to. There's also a timeout factor most people don't account for. If you need the obituary published on a specific day — say, before a memorial service — you have to submit it at least two business days in advance, ideally three. The paper doesn't rush things, and if you're trying to squeeze something in last minute, you'll probably end up waiting until the next edition anyway. I had a situation where a family needed the obit in the Tuesday paper for a Wednesday service, submitted it Monday afternoon, and it still didn't run until Thursday because the Monday edition was already past the cutoff. They had to reschedule the visitation.
Get the Full Details
Another edge case worth mentioning: if someone died under unusual circumstances — an accident, a crime, something that made local news — the obituary might get flagged for additional review. The paper wants to make sure the details in the obit don't conflict with what's already in the news coverage. This can add a day or two to the turnaround and sometimes results in awkward questions from the editor about specific details you'd rather not discuss. Not ideal, but it happens more often than you'd think. If you want the obituary to stand out, the best thing you can do is keep it accurate and complete. No exaggerations, no half-truths about military service or community involvement. The Quad City Times has a circulation that covers two states, and people in that audience will fact-check. A family friend correcting a detail in the comments section of the online version is not a good look for anyone involved. Get the facts straight before you submit, and don't leave anything out that someone close to the deceased would expect to see. The online archive is permanent, which is both a blessing and a curse. Some families prefer that certain details not be searchable by future employers or distant acquaintances. If that's a concern, keep the obituary focused on the essentials and save the more personal memories for a private memorial program or a social media post that you control directly. The newspaper version becomes a public record, plain and simple.
