How do you sum up someone’s life? What they accomplished. How they failed. How they succeeded. Who they loved. What impact did they have on others, which is the true measure of a life well lived.
While it may seem odd to some, I’ve always been interested in obituaries, and not just famous people. I look for people who I didn’t know, and often learn things about life and history. I know most people’s obituaries are in a little box, in the tiniest print, on one page in the newspaper. But you may be surprised what you can learn about people who have their life written about by a reporter.
Writing an obituary well is an art form. You are taking someone’s life in your hands, and paying tribute to them. You are writing for the person’s family, friends, co-workers. But you are also writing for people who didn’t know the person. The writer must tell the good with the bad which can be comforting, but also painful.
Two recent obituaries in the New York Times told the stories of two people who lived extarordinary lives that we should appreciate and learn some life lessons.
Sam Roberts wrote about Frank Peterson Jr. The first black aviator and first black general in the Marine Corps. Peterson was the son of a sugar-cane plantation worker from St. Croix, the Virgin Islands and grew up in Kansas when schools were still segregated. Roberts writes, “He (Peterson) was told to retake a Navy entrance exam by a recrutier who suspected he had cheated the first time; steered to naval training as a mess steward because of his race: and ejected from a public bus while training in Florida for refusing to sit with the other black passengers.” Most people have heard of Rosa Parks’ defiance of racism on a bus. But did you know about Frank Peterson?
Peterson went on to enlist in the Navy and later joined the Marines. He also graduated from George Washington University with an undergraduate degree and a masters. He flew over three hundred combats missions in Korea and Vietnam. He and his wife had been refused housing during his career because they were black. But he fought through it all, and pushed to break down racial barriers in the military. He served 38 years, and retired as a three star lieutenant general in 1988. He was 83 when he died.
While Peterson broke down barriers, Roberts quotes him as saying “never” when asked if there had been enough progress.
Several weeks earlier this summer, I noticed the photograph in the Times of a junkyard in the middle of an obituary of former New York City undercover police detective Douglas LeVien written by Margalit Fox. I could clearly see the address of the junkyard as 5700 Avenue D in Brooklyn. I recognized it as the one that stood across the street from Nazareth High School which I attended from 1964 to 1968.
I could also see in the picture a white trailer parked in the yard that turned out to be the scene of LeVien’s most spectacular undercover operation. Fox writes about Operation Gold Bug in 1972. For the first time, authorities were able to plant a bug inside the trailer where mobster Paul Vario, the character player by Paul Servino in “Goodfellas”, did business with members of the five New York City crime families.
Fox writes how LeVien sold himself as a detective on the take and got Vario to offer him a bribe. This lead to hundreds of arrests and convictions. LeVien worked under tremedous pressure on many undercover assignments, and even was in the witness protection program for a while. Fox quotes LeVien’s son as saying his father suffered with the psycholgical effects of the job and was a recovering alcoholic. LeVien was 68 when he died.
Two lives that made a difference. Both men dealt with difficult personal and career issues, including divorce and alcoholism, but made the lives of others better. I think we can learn how to make our own lives better by studying the lives of people just like us, and thinking about how we want to be remembered when someone writes our last goodbye.
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