The Power Of Gude Mortuary Obits Preserving Memories And Celebrating Lives

Writing Funeral Home Obituaries That Actually Work

Gude Mortuary has been handling memorial services in the Twin Cities area for decades. Their obituary process is straightforward once you know how it functions. Most people think writing an obituary is about gathering facts and filling out a template. It is not. It is about deciding what to leave out while keeping it true. I helped my neighbor draft one last year. Her husband had served in the Navy, worked at a factory for thirty-four years, and collected vintage watches. The form asked for his full military rank and employer. We included that. We also included the fact that he taught his granddaughter to change watch batteries at age nine. That last detail is what people remember. The rest is logistics.

The Power Of Gude Mortuary Obits Preserving Memories And Celebrating Lives

An obituary serves two purposes at once. It gives the newspaper and the funeral home the information they legally and practically need. It gives the family a chance to shape how the person will be remembered publicly. These two goals sometimes conflict. The form wants dates and locations. The heart wants the story to feel like the actual person. Here is how the process works at Gude and most similar funeral homes in Minnesota: First, you contact the funeral home directly. Gude Mortuary can be reached by phone or through their website. You will speak with a funeral director who handles obituary submissions. They will provide a questionnaire or guide you through gathering the necessary biographical details. This step usually takes ten to fifteen minutes if you have the information ready.

Second, you write or submit the draft. Some families write it themselves and send it to the funeral home for review. Others work with the funeral director to draft it together. Gude Mortuary typically allows families to submit their own wording as long as it meets publication standards. They do not rewrite your content unless there are factual errors or language that could cause problems with the newspaper publisher. Third, the obituary is reviewed and approved by the funeral home before submission to the newspaper. This is where many families miss something important. The funeral director will check dates, names, and surviving family members against their records. If there is a discrepancy, they flag it. Getting this step right the first time prevents delays that can push publication back by a day or two. Fourth, the obituary runs in the newspaper and on the funeral home's website. Gude Mortuary posts obituaries on their site within twenty-four hours of approval. Newspaper publication depends on the outlet's schedule and deadline. Star Tribune runs obituaries daily, but submission deadlines are typically mid-morning. If you miss that window, the piece waits until the next edition.

There is a practical detail that most people do not know about. Obituary word counts vary by publication. The Star Tribune charges by the line or by the word, and rates change periodically. Gude Mortuary can advise you on current pricing, but you should confirm directly because fees are not fixed. A standard obituary runs between two hundred and four hundred words. Going over that range increases cost without necessarily adding value. Here is something counter-intuitive that I learned working with several families on these drafts. The section listing surviving family members is where most errors occur. Not because people make mistakes, but because family dynamics are complicated. I once worked with a daughter who wanted to include her half-brother. His name was on the death certificate but had not spoken to the family in twelve years. Including him would have been accurate. Omitting him would have been kinder to some readers. We included him with a neutral listing. No drama, no explanation, just the name in the standard format. That is the safest path. Another thing beginners miss is the importance of the predeceased section. People focus on who is left behind and forget that mentioning who died before the person being honored provides context. It grounds the life story. A simple list works fine. You do not need full dates for everyone in that section unless the family wants them.

If you are dealing with a non-traditional situation, like a person who had no close family or whose relationships were complicated, the standard template does not fit well. I handled one case where the deceased had adopted three children and raised two grandchildren but was estranged from his biological siblings. The form asked for "survived by." We listed the adoptive children and grandchildren. We did not list the biological siblings. The funeral director confirmed this was acceptable under their submission guidelines. The newspaper ran it without question. When forms do not match reality, you adjust the language rather than forcing a square peg into a round hole. The biggest bottleneck in this whole process is gathering information from multiple family members. You will get conflicting details. Different relatives will remember different dates, spell names differently, or disagree on what relationships existed. This is normal. It is also the most stressful part for grieving families. My approach has always been to pick one authoritative source for disputed facts. The death certificate is usually the most reliable document available. If family members disagree on a detail that is not on the certificate, the funeral director can help you decide what to include based on what is verifiable and appropriate. There is a downside to relying on funeral home obituary services. You lose some control over the timeline. If the funeral home is backslogged, which happens frequently during holiday weekends or periods of high demand, your obituary may not go to the newspaper until several days after death. If you need immediate publication, you can submit directly to the newspaper's obituary desk, but you will not have the funeral home's review process catching errors. Both paths work. You just have to decide which tradeoff matters more to you.

Gude Mortuary's office is located at 3200 University Avenue in Saint Paul. Their phone number and online submission portal are listed on their website. They accept obituary drafts via email or through their online form. Most submissions are confirmed within a few hours during business hours. After hours, you can leave a voicemail and expect a callback the next morning. Photos matter more than most people expect. Gude Mortuary allows a photo to accompany the obituary on their website and sometimes in the newspaper depending on the publication's policy. A clear, recent headshot or a candid photo that captures the person's personality both work. The photo should be at least three hundred pixels wide. Anything smaller looks blurry when printed. I have seen families submit photos that were too low resolution and had to rush to find a better one under time pressure. Have the image ready before you submit anything. Donation requests and service details belong at the end. Keep them separate from the biographical content. Mixing them into the main body makes the obituary feel cluttered and rushed. A clean structure reads better and is easier for newspaper editors to format. Standard order is biographical sketch, then family listings, then service information, then donation or memorial requests.

The obituary is not a permanent document in the way people imagine. Newspaper archives can be lost, paywalled, or reorganized by the publication. The funeral home's website is more stable, but even those shift over time. If preserving the text for future generations matters to you, save a copy locally and share it with family members. Do not assume it will be easily accessible in five years. Writing one of these is tedious and emotional. It takes longer than you think because you keep second-guessing what to include. Most families spend two to four hours on a single obituary. If you want it done faster, assign one person to draft it and ask the rest of the family to send information to that person instead of all contributing separately. Multiple contributors create more work, not less.