Writing Obituaries That Actually Capture Someone
The "Sum of a Life" approach at Howerton Funeral Homes is basically a framework for writing obituaries that don't read like generic templates. Most funeral homes will hand you a fill-in-the-blank form and you just plug in dates and surviving relatives. Howerton's method asks you to pull together a fuller portrait before the ink even hits the page. It takes longer upfront but the result tends to get read all the way through instead of being skimmed past. Here's how the process actually works in practice. Before the service, the funeral director or the family sits down with what they call a life interview. This isn't a quick phone call. It's usually 30 to 45 minutes where someone goes beyond the basic bio data. They're looking for the things that made the person who they were. What did they do for fun? Were they known for something specific in the community? Any quirks or habits people would recognize immediately? I've seen families start out giving me a list of survivors and birth dates, then five minutes into talking they'll mention that the deceased always wore mismatched socks on Tuesdays and volunteered at the local food bank every Saturday for twenty years. That's the stuff that turns a dry notice into something people actually connect with.
Once you have that material, you structure the obituary around narrative beats instead of a chronological resume. Start with the essential facts. Name, age, date of passing, location. Then move into the life details. Career highlights if they matter. Community involvement. Hobbies. Relationships. The tone should match the person, not some default solemn voice. A person who was known for being funny and irreverent shouldn't have their obituary sound like they walked into a church for the last time. I ran into a specific issue last year that most people don't anticipate. A family wanted to include their father's second marriage and the blended family dynamics, but there was tension between members of the first and second families. Writing that honestly without causing a scene at the reading of the obituary was tricky. The workaround was to list all surviving family members equally without labeling which children came from which marriage, then include a brief sentence that acknowledged he is survived by both families. It was factual, respectful, and didn't invite anyone to pick a side. The family was satisfied and nobody at the visitation had an issue with it. There are a few pitfalls that tend to trip people up.
One is overloading the piece with accolades. People love to list every award, membership, and achievement. But an obituary isn't a resume. A reader's attention span is maybe two minutes at most. Focus on what made the person feel alive, not what made their LinkedIn profile look impressive. Another common mistake is assuming the obituary needs to be uniformly reverent. Some people's lives were messy and complicated, and pretending otherwise feels dishonest. A balanced obituary can acknowledge struggles briefly while still honoring the person's overall journey. This is where the "Sum of a Life" framework helps because it's designed to capture the full picture, not just the highlight reel. The practical side of getting this right involves a few steps. First, gather the basic information. Full legal name, date of birth, date of death, city and state of residence. Also collect the list of surviving immediate family and predeceased family members. Second, collect the life story elements. Interview at least two or three people who knew the deceased well. Sometimes siblings remember different things than coworkers or childhood friends. Third, draft the obituary in a word processor before sending it anywhere. This gives you room to revise. Fourth, have the primary family contact review it for accuracy. Spelling of names and dates is critical. A misspelled grandchild's name in print is harder to fix after publication.
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If you're working directly with Howerton Funeral Homes, they typically handle the writing and formatting as part of their service. You provide the information and they shape it into the final piece. If you're writing it yourself, keep the tone consistent and avoid switching between third person and first person mid-paragraph. Also don't forget to proofread for dates. I once saw an obituary where the person's age was listed as 78 in one sentence and 87 in another. The family hadn't caught it before it went to print. The upside of putting real effort into an obituary is that it becomes a lasting document. People reference these decades later when they're trying to remember someone. A template obituary doesn't help anyone remember anything. A well-written one does.
