Go to hell, Mom!
That was the main idea expressed in a death notice for a woman from Minnesota that was released this week.
The 105-word “memorial” appeared in a Minnesota small-town newspaper, and it was certainly direct. The warning was taken off the Redwood Falls Gazette’s website this week after a number of readers expressed outrage that it went too far. Redwood Falls, Minnesota, has a population of 5,254.
The message opens in a conventional manner. Born in Wabasso, Minnesota, in 1938, Kathleen Dehmlow (née Schunk) wed Dennis Dehmlow 19 years later. The two children of the marriage were named Gina and Jay.
The death notice takes an unexpected turn in the third paragraph.
“In 1962, she became pregnant by her husband’s brother Lyle Dehmlow and moved to California,” it states. “She abandoned her children, Gina and Jay who were then raised by her parents in Clements, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Schunk.”
The warning closes on an especially sour and nasty note.
“She died in Springfield on May 31, 2018, and she will now be judged. Gina and Jay know that this world is a better place without her, even though they will miss her.”
Ouch!
According to Heather Lende, author of Find the Good: Unexpected Life Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer, the unadulterated rage conveyed in those five brief paragraphs has sparked a discussion on social media about what is appropriate to say about the deceased.
“At its very basic level, an obituary is a death announcement in the paper with a biography,” Lende tells Here & Now’s Robin Young. “I don’t think there’s any reason to pass judgment. If there’s nothing nice to say, you just stick to the basic biographical outline and leave it at that.”
Although the notice’s facts are accurate, one relative, Dwight Dehmlow, informed the Star Tribune that it only painted a partial picture of Dehmlow’s life.
“There is more to it than this. It’s not that simple,” he said. “She made a mistake 60 years ago, but who hasn’t? Has she regretted it over the years? Yes.”
Dehmlow said that Kathleen passed away with her sisters by her side after spending the previous year in a nursing facility.
Following the death notice’s appearance on the international online portal, legacy.com was also forced to reassess its standards in response to the incident.
“Because the content standards of our newspaper partners are extremely high, we haven’t needed to implement independent standards in this area,” CEO and founder Stopher Bartol said in a statement. “That said, we take very seriously the trust placed in us by our partners and the families we together serve, and we will review and re-evaluate our procedures as necessary.”
Family members talking in jaded tones about the deceased is not unusual. Leslie Ray Charping of Galveston, Texas, had a family that posted a harsh tribute to him last year. It listed his interests, which “included being abusive to his family, expediting trips to heaven for the beloved family pets, and fishing.”
According to Susan Soper, an obituary expert who gives advice on writing them, family members frequently write these kinds of death notes for straightforward reasons like catharsis, anger, or bitterness.
“People don’t generally speak ill of the dead,” Soper told The Washington Post. “But not always. There are plenty of obituaries that have been very honest and truthful about the hurt someone has caused — or the misdeeds they have committed.”
Jay Dehmalo, the son of Kathleen, who changed his last name to separate himself from his family, is quoted in the Daily Mail as saying that he and his sister were aware that there would be criticism, but they are happy that they have come out with the truth about their mother.
“It helped us [to write this],” Dehmalo said. “We wanted to finally get the last word.”