Memories, Eulogies, and the Stories We Tell

Honoring family through honest memorials and the role of AI in shaping our words.

Yesterday I watched my mother-in-law's funeral, live-streamed on Facebook.

Grandma Jo passed away peacefully, and thanks to technology, when last minute flights are out of the question, distant family can still be part of the service.

I could see the back of my daughter's head from miles away. My grandson has a new haircut. So does my niece.

One of my nephews rose to read the eulogy, written by his brother. And as I listened, I could see this dear lady in my mind, from childhood through old age, including the quirks, the stubborn set of her jaw, the twinkle in her eye. He encapsulated her life as only someone close to her could do, and he did it with honesty and integrity.

I sent a quick text. "I'm blown away by your written word!"

The conservative pastor rose to speak. “Well, that certainly was …. something else.”

My nephew answered. "I hope it was fair to her. Not sure the minister approves."

The minister probably expected the standard, vanilla, "She was a great lady. She helped the sick and the poor. She adopted every stray child who didn't have a home."

But we didn't need that. We already knew that.

My nephew’s eulogy was what I would characterize as a mixed style. I would analyze it further today, but I don't have a copy yet, or his permission, so I’ll use one of my own.

Eulogies and Family Stories

When you think about family stories, eulogies or memorials might not be the first items that come to mind. But these narratives let us weave stories together to add richness and depth to what might otherwise be a dull list of life events. And if you’re known as the keeper of family stories, somebody is going to ask you to speak at a memorial service sooner or later.

A similar memorial style can also be adapted and used as a tribute to ancestors. I've used it in the past for the veterans in my family, which is apropos for this Veteran’s Day weekend. The trick is to pick the format that fits the person.

Common Structures

Here are a few common approaches to structuring a eulogy:

• Chronological: Tracks a person's journey from birth to death.

• Character-Focused: Organized around key traits or qualities.

• Theme-Based: Focuses on core values that shaped a person's life.

• Anecdote-Driven: Stories that show different sides of their character.

• Legacy-Focused: Highlights their influence on people.

• Mixed Style: Mixes timelines with personal stories and traits.

• Letter Style: Write this as a letter or speak directly to the person.

Today I’ll look at a tribute I wrote for my Aunt Esther, Auntie Hez. She died 10 years ago, but we still think of her often, so I pulled out the memorial I wrote for her service and dusted it off.

The Chronological Choice

This tribute was different than if I were writing something for Esther Hammond, Auntie Hez’s great-grandmother. We didn’t know Esther Hammond directly. Apparently she liked matching plaid outfits with her husband, which was pretty stylish.

Year unknown. Provided by a family member. James 1805-1871. Esther 1809-1882.

For Grandma Hammond, I might write a timeline of her life, with her birth, parents, siblings, husband, children, and where she lived. I’d mention current events from her time and look for news articles about her. I’d include her photo and explain what she means to me or what I think her legacy was.

A More Intimate Choice

The most interesting thing about Grandma Hammond, for me, besides the plaid, was learning where the name Esther came from. It was passed down through generations: Esther Hammond, Sophia Travis, Mary Esther McMillan, Grace Sophia McGuffin, and finally my Auntie Hez, Esther Janette Olson. Auntie Hez didn’t like the name Esther very well, but I think she might appreciate it more if she knew about its cool plaid origins.

Since we did know Auntie Hez, the memorial message could be more intimate than for somebody from long ago, so when I wrote a piece for her service, I chose a mixed approach, blending memories from different times in her life with character-driven anecdotes. This allowed me to create a portrait of her personality and experiences without following a strict timeline.

Using The ChatGPT Creative Writing Coach

That was 10 years ago, and I haven’t looked at it since, so the first thing I did today was to open up the Creative Writing Coach GPT, paste in my text, and ask for a critique.

If you’re not familiar with ChatGPT, you can find many tutorials online. I’ll put a link at the end.

In this case I gave the Creative Writing Coach some instructions, which you can see in the illustration above.

The instructions could have been more explicit, but I’ve found that I don’t have to get hung up on perfection. There are many online articles explaining how to create the perfect “prompt”—as these instructions are called. The articles often contradict each other. They’re great for ideas, but nothing beats doing some experiments for yourself.

ChatGPT suggested some commas, and it wanted me to take out the lot numbers in paragraph one. I explained that my cousins care about genealogy details like lot numbers, so we kept that information.

Bottom line, I don’t want AI to write for me, but I’m not too proud to let it suggest edits. I also don’t automatically accept its suggestions.

Assembling the Scenes

Dementia took over my aunt’s mind late in life. More often than not she was living in a different place and time, somewhere in the past. And when she attempted to articulate her thoughts, she sometimes jumped from one place to the next in the middle of a thought.

I started my piece with concrete details, setting the scene by describing the two places she spoke of most often during those last years before shifting to a series of 2nd person vignettes.

Isn’t 2nd person an odd choice for a memorial? Perhaps, but I wanted my reader to come into her world, to see what she was seeing. I also wanted to pack many details into 700 written words, which is about five minutes of spoken word.

Some Basic Guidelines

1. If this is for a funeral or memorial service:

   • Check with the organizer to find out how long you should speak. (Best guess, it will be 5-10 minutes. But this can vary.)

   • Practice reading what you've written out loud ahead of time. Sometimes you'll find one tongue twister down in paragraph seven.

2. No matter what format you choose for presenting your material (chronological or something else), focus on concrete details and specific memories.

3. Balance honesty with positivity. People aren’t perfect, and you don’t have to ignore all their flaws. If a flaw is integral to your story, you can present it with gentle humor—as an endearing quirk or a trait that drove people a little crazy but had its upsides, too.

4. End with a meaningful closing or a vision of the person’s legacy. What will they be remembered for? Is there a quote that truly captures their essence? Note: If not handled carefully, endings can sometimes feel trite. When I look at the end of my piece now, I wonder—could I have been more creative? But in the moment, at a service, perhaps a closing that feels a little predictable, but brings comfort, isn’t the worst thing.

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Auntie Hez

In her last years, Auntie Hez spent a lot of time at the old house in Gresham, Oregon, just a few blocks northwest of the intersection of Foster Road and Dahlquist. Another favorite spot was her childhood home in southeast Portland, where her father built three houses on two lots—numbers 11 and 12 in Block 29 of the Brentwood district.

I like to think of this as her own special form of time travel, that old-age ability to be somewhere and some when else. Your body is in Goldendale, Washington, in 2014. But in your mind, it is 1947, and you are at the college biology station in Anacortes, Washington. You're on a walk with your fiancé, and he is going to steal a kiss behind the cedar tree up ahead.

It's 1935. You're in the attic with your brothers and sisters. You've assembled various noise-making devices so that you can pretend to be the Hoosier Hotshots, a band from the radio. Your instrument is a washboard. Your brother looks over and calls out, "Are you ready, Hezzie?"

It's 1927, and you have been very sick. You wake up and look over at your mother, who is sewing. You ask, "Mamma, did I die?" 

She answers, "No sweetheart, some of your seams came undone, but I stitched them back up with my sewing machine." For a time, you think she is serious.

It's 1959. You're at a church potluck in the Lents district of Portland. Your five children play tag in the parking lot while you visit with friends. You tell a story, and your friends laugh. You return a puzzled smile. People say you are funny. "Such a great sense of humor!" But you’re never certain which part of the story was the funny part.

Sometimes reality yanks you back to here and now, to the home you've shared with your husband for many years. But you don't remember this house, and you think it belongs to somebody else. You feel like two cents, like you’re living on charity, and you ask repeatedly to return to Foster Road. You ask for your brothers and sisters. You ask for your husband. Here and now is torture.

After some minutes or hours, you close your eyes and sink back into the blessed relief of another time and place.

You are lying on the grass in the backyard with your sisters, and you can’t stop giggling. You've giggled so much you can barely breathe.

You're sweeping sand off the floor of your rental house in Newport, Oregon. Your husband is in the back room, talking on his ham radio. This morning you painted a picture of Mount Hood. This afternoon you'll walk the beach and look for seashells and Japanese floats.

You're back on Foster Road, and your father is at the door. He walked two miles from his house to yours, stopping at the Pleasant Valley Market to get ice cream. He pulls a melting fudge bar from his pocket and holds it out.

It's Christmas Eve at your father's house. He’s making popcorn in the kitchen. The room is full of family and talk and laughter.

In my imagination, this is how life was for my aunt the last few years—a confusing mishmash of current life and distant memories. On April 2, 2014, she sang a few bars of a favorite hymn and closed her eyes one last time.

I like to think that the next time I see her, she'll wink at me and say, "Well, Nancy Clancy, I don't feel like two cents anymore. I got here, and I walked up to that man over there with the wings, and I says to him, I says, Where is that husband of mine? And he pointed to a driveway and told me to walk up that way.

So I did.

I walked by two maple trees, around a bend, past a raspberry patch, and three old cars parked behind some fruit trees. I spotted a ham radio antenna towering over a house up ahead. And right at that moment... that's when I knew. I was home."

In loving memory. 

Esther Janette Olson Whitehouse
11/10/1924 - 04/02/2014

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Using ChatGPT for Analysis

I asked ChatGPT to analyze this piece. It droned on longer than some of the dullest eulogies I’ve ever endured. But if you find a tribute or memorial that you really like, and you want to study it further, try pasting it into one of the AI assistants (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini) and ask it to analyze the piece and give you a break down of the strong points.

Just remember:

1. These AI assistants can make mistakes, so don't automatically assume that everything they say is correct.

2. Just because they make a suggestion, that doesn't mean you need to follow it.

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Some good links for further investigation:

• How to use ChatGPT – everything beginners need to know about the AI chatbot | TechRadar.

• 17 Heartfelt Eulogy Examples to Honor Your Loved One's Memory

• Olive Tree Genealogy Blog: January Genealogy Challenge: Write an Ancestor Tribute (Some ideas about writing tributes.)

• How do you write a story that’s not yours? Telling the stories of your ancestors — Pictures and Stories (suggests some questions to ask when dealing with more distant ancestors)