As a young staffer for the Christian Science Monitor, he once wrote an early, never-used
obit for Nixon.
Adding still more intrigue to his writing, Sheeler displays a suspense novelist's ability to sustain audience interest by withholding key information about an individual, his life story, or his death until late in the
obit. An example of this can be seen in one of Sheeler's grimmest pieces, "Mr.
Brennan equally convinced shares the
obit with a skeptical Monty who wonders if Declan's guilt over actions as a youngster in the IRA is not distorting his sensibilities.
Post retirees such as Wayne Leeman, Amour Krupnik and John Brophy, were denied news
obits but former Globe-Democrat executives and retirees such as Les Pearson and Mary Kimbrough (the latest) got written
obits.
Some of her most memorable
obits described the lives and deaths of characters like Sweet Evening Breeze, a well-known cross-dresser; Maggie Bailey, the "Queen of the Mountain Bootleggers"; and Ollie "The Widow" Combs, a Faulkneresque character who was an activist against surface coal mining.
Then, in 1982, Tom Livingston, then managing editor, offered me "first refusal" to be the paper's first
obit writer.
Here is a sample of the 'great stylings' from McG., in his
obit titled Minnesota Fats, A Real Hustler With A Pool Cue, Is Dead:
I like to compose the
obit with a lively and/or life-defining lead and a satisfying finale.
Not one of the more than 200 people I interviewed for the biography The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson: The Pretty Boys and Dirty Deals of Henry Willson remembered Phyllis quite the way McLellan and other
obit writers have.
The only one I would enjoy doing now would be to write the
obit for the year 2005.
