JournalOctober 9, 2026

How to Write an Obituary for a Father: A Guide With Examples

Writing your father's obituary is one of the first things asked of you and one of the hardest. Here is a simple structure, two full examples, and permission to keep it plain.

Somewhere in the first day or two after your father died, someone probably asked you for the obituary. Maybe the funeral home needs it by Thursday. Maybe the paper has a word limit and a deadline that has nothing to do with how you feel.

It is a strange assignment. You are asked to summarize a man who took sixty or eighty or ninety years to become himself, and you are asked to do it while you are barely sleeping. If you have been staring at a blank page, that is not writer's block. That is grief, doing what grief does.

Here is a structure you can lean on, and a few examples to borrow from. You do not have to write anything beautiful. You have to write something true, and then you can stop.

Start with the facts, because they are the easiest part

Every obituary rests on a small set of facts, and gathering them first gives you something to do with your hands before you have to find any words.

His full name, including any middle name, and the name people actually called him
His age, and the city where he lived
The date he died, and where
Where and when he was born, and to whom
His marriage or marriages, with dates if you know them
His work, his service, his schooling
Who survives him, and who went before him
Service details: date, time, place, and where to send flowers or donations

Call a sibling or an aunt for the parts you are unsure of. People are usually glad to be asked. It gives them something to do too.

A structure that holds up

Most obituaries follow roughly the same shape, and there is no reason to invent a new one now.

The opening line. Name, age, city, and when he died. One sentence. "Robert Allen Shaw, 81, of Davenport, died on March 4, 2026, at home."

His beginnings. Born where, to whom, and anything about how he grew up that shaped him.

His life's work. What he did for a living, how long, and whether he liked it. Military service belongs here, with branch and years.

His people. Who he married, when, and for how long. Children, grandchildren, the dog if the dog mattered.

Who he was. Two or three sentences on what he was actually like. This is the part people read twice.

Survivors and those who preceded him. Names and cities, usually closest relationships first.

The practical close. Service information, and where memorial gifts can go.

Write the part that sounds like him

The difference between an obituary that reads like a form and one that reads like a man is almost always four or five sentences in the middle. Not adjectives. Details.

"He was a kind and devoted father" is true of a great many people, and it tells a reader nothing. "He kept a roll of quarters in the truck for the car wash and let whichever grandchild was riding along pick the soap color" tells them everything.

If you are stuck, try answering one of these out loud and writing down what you say:

What did he always say? The phrase everyone in the family can still hear in his voice.
What was he doing when he was happiest?
What did he fix, build, grow, or refuse to throw away?
What was he proud of that he would never have called pride?
Who did he quietly help, and would he have minded you mentioning it?

Pick the two that make you smile or ache, and put those in. Leave the rest for the eulogy, where you have more room.

An example: traditional and straightforward

Names and details here are invented, meant only as a pattern to work from.

Robert Allen Shaw, 81, of Davenport, Iowa, died peacefully at home on March 4, 2026, surrounded by his family.

Bob was born on June 12, 1944, in Rock Island, Illinois, to Allen and Marie Shaw. He graduated from Rock Island High School in 1962 and served four years in the United States Navy before returning home to begin a thirty-six-year career as a lineman with the local electric cooperative. He was proud of that work and of the crews he trained, several of whom still call the family by first name.

On September 9, 1967, he married Patricia Lane at St. Mark's Church. They were married fifty-eight years. Bob was a steady, unhurried man who got up early, kept a tidy garage, and believed any problem could be improved by walking out to look at it again. He coached Little League for eleven seasons and never once raised his voice at an umpire, which his sons found remarkable.

He is survived by his wife, Patricia; his sons, Michael (Anne) of Cedar Rapids and David of Davenport; his daughter, Karen Shaw Reilly (Tom) of Chicago; seven grandchildren; and his sister, Joan Hoffman of Moline. He was preceded in death by his parents and his brother, Richard.

A funeral service will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, March 8, at St. Mark's Church, with visitation one hour prior. Memorial contributions may be made to the Davenport Food Pantry.

An example: warmer and less formal

Dad died on Tuesday morning, March 4, at the age of 81, in the house he built in 1978 and never seriously considered leaving.

Robert Allen Shaw, who answered to Bob, Dad, Grandpa, and on one memorable occasion to a bull calf he had named after himself, was born in Rock Island in 1944. He spent four years in the Navy and thirty-six on the back of an electric co-op truck, and he could tell you the history of nearly every pole between here and Clinton.

He married our mother, Patricia, in 1967, and he spent the next fifty-eight years making her laugh at jokes she had already heard. He was not a man of many words, but he showed up. To games, to recitals, to the airport at five in the morning, to anybody's driveway with a shovel.

He leaves behind Mom; the three of us; seven grandchildren who all got to drive the riding mower before they were legally allowed to drive anything; and a workshop none of us will ever be able to organize the way he had it.

We will gather at St. Mark's at 10:00 on Saturday. Wear what you like. He would not have cared.

A few things worth avoiding

Do not let the word limit decide the content. Write the version you want first, then cut. Cutting is easier than expanding.

Be careful with the full survivor list. Family structures are complicated, and an omission that was an oversight at 2 a.m. can be read as a statement for years. Have one other family member check the names.

Decide together how much to say about his death. "Died after a long illness" is enough if that is all you want to share. If he died of something the family wants named, naming it can help other people, and that is a choice that belongs to you, not to convention.

Do not reach for language that is not yours. If your family does not say "entered into eternal rest," do not start now. Plain words carry him better.

Proofread the dates and the times. People will drive across states based on what you write.

If the words will not come

Some fathers are hard to write about. Some of us had a complicated one, and the obituary becomes a small act of diplomacy on top of everything else. If that is where you are, you are allowed to write a short, respectful, factual obituary and put your real feelings somewhere private. The newspaper is not the place to resolve a relationship.

And if the problem is simply that there was too much of him to fit, that is a kinder problem. Write the facts for the paper and let the rest come out another way, when you have the room for it.

Some families find that the memories they could not get onto the page come more easily when they are talking rather than writing. That is part of why we built Their Life Song the way we did: you tell us about him, in your own words and at your own pace, and we turn what you share into an original song written for him alone. For some families it becomes the piece of the tribute that holds what the obituary could not.

However you write it, remember that nobody reading it is grading you. They are looking for his name, and for the time of the service, and for one line that reminds them of him. Give them that, and you have done the job.