[APG Public List] predeceased by infant children

[Kathy Gunter Sullivan]

I don't think this is a trend in the funeral industry (after all, family 
members can control the obituary facts) or necessarily a decision by the 
composer as to the importance of those predeceasing the obituary's 
subject person. Composing an obituary is a task performed under stress, 
and presence of mind isn't always "present."

My Mother lost a child at age nine days when I was seven years old. Many 
years later, for a Mother's Day present, Mother's adult children gave 
her a ring set with the birthstones of her children, but the infant 
child had been overlooked. Eventually, Mother commented that Beth 
Ellen's birthstone was absent from her ring. Family members do forget or 
are too stressed to include everything in an obituary, but the Mothers 
don't forget. My Mother's obituary carefully included Beth Ellen as a 
child who predeceased her Mother.

Kathy Sullivan
Charlotte, NC

> I suspect that whoever wrote the obituaries just didn't think it was important to include
> those who predeceased the subject of the obituaries.
>
> Stephen J. Danko, PLCGS
>  
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------At 06:28 AM 12/23/2009, Ida Ida Skarson McCormick wrote:
> In the case of 2 cousins who died in the last 6 months, one in Michigan and one in Washington State, I have noticed that although each lost a child in infancy, neither of those is in the obituary "predeceased by" list. Is this a trend in the funeral industry?
> There is not even an allusion to an "infant son."
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