Today's Notable Obituary Names

Wladyslawa T. Oniszczuk
Rev. Thomas Patrick Quinn
Eleanor (Barnes) Bjorlykke

I also had two 101 year olds in this 2 month crop of papers. Not bad for one small town.

Today's most awesome name.

Vyvyan R. (Masterson) Stoothoff-Garcia

LaFrance

This just in . . . I haven't figured out what Felton Spencer is doing these days, but his middle name is "LaFrance." He is fourth in Jazz playoff history with 5.6 rebounds per game. I wonder what his fouls per nine minutes average would be.

On Obituaries

One of the jobs I do at the reference desk involves perusing the local papers and entering the names of the people who have died over the past several months, their age, and the page number and date of the obituary. This is so future versions of me will have an easier time of it when the relatives show up and want to see the microfilm. It is also an interesting way to study the demographics of a place like this, as well as the statistics of death. While most of the people in here are in their 70s, 80s, and 90s (and even some in their 100s), there are a surprising (possibly only to me) number of 20s, 30s, and 40s, and unfortunately also several newborns or young children. Doing a job like this makes you realize that people are dying every day, as well as being born, and there's not much anyone can do about it. The best thing about this task is the opportunity to name-watch, which I haven't done since my days of running summer registration for children's tennis. For example:

Giacomina (Richiedei) Risciotti
Czeslawa (Macierowski) Chmura
Anne P. (Kudelski) Philbrook-McMennamin
Justin Plouffe
Josephine "Pina" (Salvetti) Lorenzatti
Tadeusz Pasterkiewicz
Mario Asta-Ferrero

Hopefully these names will live on long after their bearers.