Writing Obituaries in the Berlin, New Hampshire Area
Berlin is a small city in Coos County with a population around 7,000. When someone passes here, the obituary process is different from what you might expect from the big cities. The local papers are limited. The Concord Union Leader still handles many obituaries for the northern counties, but Berlin has its own rhythms. This isn't a single service or a formal organization. It's the kind of obituary you see compiled by local funeral homes when they publish memorial collections. The phrase itself sounds like it came from a package deal an agency sold, but what it actually represents is the standard workflow most families go through when a death occurs in the North Country. I've helped people with this. Not as a writer by trade. I spent about eight years at a funeral home here and watched too many families struggle with the paperwork. The actual writing is the easy part. It's the logistics around it that mess people up.
Here is how it works in practice. You start with the death certificate. The funeral director files this, but you need to make sure the spelling of every name on it matches what you intend to put in the obituary. I lost count of the number of times I saw a mother's maiden name misspelled on a death certificate and then having to file an amendment before the paper would even accept the obituary. The Union Leader and the Berlin Daily Journal both require verified information. They won't run something with a typo in a date. They will send it back and you lose a day you don't have. The timeline matters more than people realize. Most papers want obituaries submitted at least 48 hours before publication. Berlin moves slower than Manchester or Concord, but the deadline is still firm. If someone dies on a Thursday, you aren't getting published until the following Monday at the earliest unless you pay for emergency placement, and even then you're gambling on whether the editor is in the office. Friday and Saturday deaths are the worst. You're basically hoping for a Tuesday run unless you go with an online-only option.
The content itself follows a fairly rigid format that the papers expect. Full legal name. Age. City of residence. Date of death. Brief biographical sketch. Surviving family members listed in order. Predeceased relatives. Service information. Donations if applicable. That's it. Nothing fancy. The papers in this area don't run creative obituaries the way some places do. Keep it clean. Keep it factual. One thing nobody tells you about listing survivors: the order matters more than you'd think. Spouse first. Then children in age order. Then grandchildren. Then parents if they're still living. Then siblings. If you skip a close family member, even accidentally, people notice. I had a case where a family forgot to list a surviving brother because they thought he was estranged and didn't want to deal with it. The brother found out from the newspaper and called the funeral home. It created a situation that took three weeks to resolve. Just list everyone. You can always add a note like "survived by" versus "also survived by" if the relationship is complicated, but don't leave people out. The cost side is another thing people get wrong. Obituaries in the Union Leader run about $200 to $400 depending on length and whether you include a photo. The Berlin Daily Journal is cheaper, somewhere in the $100 to $250 range. Some families only place it in one paper and miss the reach. The North Country people have scattered all over. Your uncle might live in Nashua. Your cousin might be in Portland. If you only do Berlin, you're leaving people out. I usually recommend at least the Union Leader for coverage across the state and the local paper for the immediate community.
Get the Full Details
Online memorials are the workaround most people don't consider until it's too late. Sites like Legacy.com or the funeral home's own page will run your obituary for free or very cheap and you can link it from the printed version. This is how most of the younger family members find out anyway. The old-timers read the paper. Everyone else gets a Facebook share. Make sure both happen. There are limits to what the papers will print. They won't run anything that looks like a death notice paid for by a third party without disclosing it. They won't print religious language that could be seen as promoting a specific denomination in a way that violates their policy. Keep it neutral. The funeral directors here know this stuff. Ask yours. They've seen every variation of this there is. Photos are tricky. You can submit one for free with most papers but they want it in a specific format. Usually JPEG, at least 300 DPI, and under a certain file size. I've had people send me photos from their phones that were 2 megabytes and pixelated. Rescreenshot it from the original or scan it. A blurry photo of a dead person is worse than no photo at all.
If the death is unexpected or under investigation, the coroner's office may restrict what information you can include until the report is released. I've had families try to list the cause of death in the obituary before the medical examiner cleared it. The paper will ask for documentation. Don't do that. Wait until you have the official word or leave it out entirely and let the service announcement handle the rest. The actual writing takes about 30 to 45 minutes if you have all the information organized. The submission and verification process takes another hour or two because you're waiting on death certificate numbers and family confirmations. Budget a full day from start to publication if you're doing it right the first time. Rushing this creates mistakes that take days to fix.
