How to Find and Submit Obituaries Through Tales of Memory in the Yakima Valley
If you are looking for local obituaries in the Yakima Valley area, Tales of Memory is one of the primary platforms the region uses. It pulls from newspapers, funeral homes, and direct family submissions. The site covers Yakima, Yakima County, and surrounding communities like Sunnyside, Toppenish, and Union Gap. It is not a standalone national service. It is a regional aggregation that most local funeral directors already work with. Most people end up here because they need to either read an obituary or submit one. I will cover both paths. The interface changes slightly depending on whether you are browsing or submitting, so the steps below reflect what I have actually used over the years rather than what the homepage says. Go to the Tales of Memory site and use the search bar. You can search by full name, last name only, or city. The results page shows recent obituaries sorted by date posted. Click into any entry and you get the full text, funeral service details, and links to send floral tributes or sign the guestbook.
One thing most guides miss: the search is not case-sensitive but it is not fuzzy either. If you type "Robert" and the obit says "Bob," you will not find it unless the family submitted a alternate name field. I ran into this exact problem last year when trying to locate an obituary for someone who went by a nickname throughout their life. The workaround was to search by the city and browse the past week's listings manually. Takes longer, but it works.
Submitting a New Obituary
There are two routes. Route one goes through a funeral home. If the family already selected a funeral director, the director handles the submission directly. That is how most obituaries end up on the platform. Route two is a direct family submission through the Tales of Memory website. The direct route requires creating an account first. Here is what the process looks like step by step:
Get the Full Details
- Navigate to the obituary submission section on the Tales of Memory website.
- Create an account using an email address. You will get a confirmation email before you can proceed.
- Fill in the deceased information: full legal name, date of birth, date of death, and city of residence.
- Write or paste the obituary text. The editor allows up to a certain word count depending on the package you choose. Free submissions are shorter. Paid placements run longer and include a photo.
- Upload a photograph if you want one. JPEG or PNG, under 5MB usually. The system resizes automatically on publish.
- Choose how long you want the obituary to stay live. Standard runs are 7 to 14 days, but you can extend for additional fees.
- Review everything carefully. Once submitted, edits are possible within a short window but not guaranteed.
- Submit and wait for approval. Most go live within 24 hours during business days. Weekends and holidays push that to 48 hours.
I once had a family submit an obituary with the wrong date of death because the funeral was being held before the official death certificate was issued. The system flagged the date as inconsistent with the obituary timeline and held it for manual review. The fix was simple: the funeral director sent a brief email with the certified date and the notice went live the same afternoon. If you run into a hold, do not panic. Email the support team directly instead of spamming the submission form. Free obituaries are available but they are short and do not include a photo. Paid tiers start around $50 to $100 depending on length and how many days you keep it up. Newspaper cross-posting usually costs extra, sometimes another $75 to $150 on top. I have found that the basic digital-only package covers most families' needs. The newspaper add-on only matters if older relatives in the area still read the paper version of the Herald-Republic. The biggest mistake I see is rushing the text submission. Typos in names, misspelled survivors, or incorrect service times show up publicly and are awkward to correct after the fact. Always have a second person read it before you submit. A third option is to draft the text in a word processor first, then copy it over. That cuts out a lot of formatting errors that the web form introduces.
Another issue is photo quality. People upload low-resolution images from phone cameras without checking how it looks. The system shrinks it for the listing page, and a blurry face on a 72-year-old does not help anyone. Use at least a 1000-pixel-wide image if possible. Better yet, scan a physical photo at 300 DPI if you have one.
When Tales of Memory Falls Short
The platform works well for standard obituaries. It is not great if you need something nonstandard. Multilingual obituaries are not well supported. You can paste Spanish or other languages into the text box, but the site does not organize or filter by language, so other readers searching in a different language will not find your notice easily. If the family needs a bilingual publication, it is better to contact the Yakima Herald-Republic directly or use a dedicated ethnic publication that runs obituaries in multiple languages. International submissions are another weak spot. If the deceased lived outside Washington but the family wants a Yakima Valley notice, the system sometimes rejects addresses that do not match regional databases. In those cases, submitting through a local funeral home that already has a relationship with the platform is more reliable than a direct online submission. If you need to archive a full obituary permanently, this is not the right tool. Tales of Memory entries disappear after the paid period ends unless you pay for an extension or an archival upgrade. For permanent records, take a PDF copy before the window closes or have the funeral home save one on their end.
For most Yakima Valley families, the platform does what it is supposed to. It gets the notice out, it reaches the right local audience, and it gives people a place to leave condolences. The key is to plan ahead, check the details twice, and know when to go through a funeral director instead of fighting the form alone.
