Terrys Metropolitan Mortuary Obituaries Honoring Lives And Preserving Legacies In The City

Writing Obituaries at Terry's Metropolitan: A Practical Guide

I spent about eight years helping families write obituaries at Terry's Metropolitan Mortuary. Most people think it is just a matter of listing dates and survivors. It is more complicated than that, mostly because the families are still processing grief and the templates we hand them are too rigid for most real lives. The basic process starts with the intake form. You fill out the deceased's full legal name, date and place of birth, parents' names, education, employment history, memberships, and the list of surviving family members. Then you draft the narrative section. That is the part people struggle with. A standard obituary runs between 200 and 500 words in most local papers, and every word has to earn its place. Here is how I would approach it if you were doing this on your own. First, gather the facts from the family. Do not start writing yet. Just collect the death certificate details, the hospital or hospice records if relevant, and any photos or personal documents that might contain biographical information. Some families will hand you a typed biography that was prepared for a different purpose. Those tend to read like resumes, and they do not work well as obituaries. You will need to reshape them.

The narrative portion should follow a loose chronological structure. Birth, upbringing, key life events, career or vocation, community involvement, and then the surviving family. The trick is deciding what to leave out. I once had a man whose career spanned four decades across three completely unrelated industries. He had been a welder, then a high school teacher, then a commercial airline mechanic. The family wanted everything included. The newspaper would not run a 900-word piece. We ended up cutting the welding years entirely and focusing on the teaching, which is what he was most proud of. That cut brought it down to about 380 words and actually made the piece stronger. One edge case I ran into regularly involved adoptive families. The birth parents are not listed in standard obituary practice, but sometimes a child who was adopted later in life had maintained contact with both sets of parents. I handled one situation where the deceased was 47 years old and had a complicated relationship with both families. The adoptive mother wanted the obituary to reflect only her relationship, while the biological father had custody rights on paper but very little contact. We listed the adoptive parents first and included a general statement about being survived by family without specifying which set. The newspaper accepted it. If you run into this, do not try to resolve the family dynamics in the obituary itself. Keep it factual and neutral. Common pitfalls to avoid:

Do not use military abbreviations without spelling them out. Not everyone knows what AMR or SSG means. Do not assume the reader knows the local newspaper's style guide. Each paper has different rules about word count, phrasing, and what they consider acceptable. Some will not run religious language at all. Others will not accept any mention of cause of death. Call the publications office before submitting. Another issue is the photo. Terry's Metropolitan can assist with selecting and formatting a photograph, but the family usually needs to provide a high-resolution digital file. A blurry phone photo will get rejected by most print publications. Aim for at least 300 DPI at the size the paper needs. If the family only has a scan of an old printed photo, you can usually improve it with basic sharpening and contrast adjustment in free software like GIMP, but a professional headshot or a well-lit recent photo is always better. The cost aspect matters too. Publishing an obituary in a major city paper like the Chicago Tribune or the New York Times can run anywhere from $200 to over $800 depending on length and placement. Smaller local papers are cheaper, sometimes under $100. Terry's Metropolitan Mortuary includes basic obituary writing in their standard funeral packages, but if you need a longer feature or multiple publications, there will be additional fees. Be clear about what you are paying for before you commit.

There is also the online component. Many families now want the obituary posted on Terry's Metropolitan website and shared on social media. This is useful because it stays up indefinitely, whereas a print obituary is gone after a few days. I recommend filing the print version first, then adapting the same text for the online post. The online version can be slightly longer since there is no strict word limit. Add a few more details there that did not make the cut for the paper. The whole process typically takes between 45 minutes and two hours depending on how much material the family provides and how many revisions are needed. Most families need one revision cycle. A small number need two or three, usually because they cannot agree on what to include. If the family seems stuck, I suggest setting a deadline. Obituaries are time sensitive. Delaying publication past the funeral service defeats most of the purpose. One thing nobody tells you about this work is how much it overlaps with grief counseling. You are not just writing a notice. You are helping people say goodbye in public. That carries weight. I have seen grown men break down when asked about a sibling they had not spoken to in ten years. I have seen women refuse to list a name because the memory was too sharp. You do your job, you offer the facts, and you let them decide what stays and what goes.

If you need to access Terry's Metropolitan Mortuary's obituary service directly, their website lists the contact information for the funeral home. You can also reach them through their main office during business hours. The staff is generally accommodating, though response times can vary depending on how many services they are running that week. Expect to wait a day or two for a callback if you are not already working with them on an active case.