Favorite obits of the week
(MING): The headline caught me in the first place. It seems that all the obituaries I’ve read before were talking about someone who either had achievement in a particular field or had a very interesting. meaningful life. But someone who killed 13 of his neighbors? Never. It’s more like reading a fiction story. When I was reading the details of the story, I could even picture the scene and it really terrified me. I was thinking that the military life this man experienced must have made him very scared, hurt or something. And. very ironically, after this, his life was all about sleeping and watching TV. His entire life literally left nothing but the massacre.
(IAN): I’m a sucker for a serial killer story. I think it comes from my love of horror movies. This guy, Howard Unruh, was a real-life monster, and never went to jail. He lived out his days confined in a hospital for the criminally insane after killing 13 of his neighbors for seemingly no reason at all.
Last week I said I really like historical obits. But I think what makes this obituary of Marek Edelman unique, is not that Edelman was a holocaust survivor and not that he had participated in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and survived. Rather, that instead of immigrating to the United States or the State of Israel, Edelman was one of the few Jews who remained and lived his life in Poland. Despite all the atrocities he endured, Edelman “refused to express open hatred for the Nazis, and for years would not talk about the ghetto uprising.” Besides the particulars of Edelman’s life, the British obit style is very cheeky, for example, “his expertise was in cardiology (uninhibited by his chain-smoking). All this makes the obit a very fascinating read.
ASHLEY (ANNE MANSFIELD SULLIVAN MACY):
I immensely enjoyed this New York Times obituary of Anne Mansfield Sullivan Macy, the aide of Helen Keller who taught her to communicate through touch and allowed her to share her thoughts and feelings with the world. I had no idea that Sullivan herself had later gone blind. It was so moving to learn that Helen Keller was at Sullivan’s bedside throughout her final week of life.
Sheldon Segal is a feminist you might not know. He was the scientist who lead the team that created Norplant and later he created Mirena. Even though Norplant was a failed experiment, Segal did a lot to expand freedom of choice for women and pushed thinking beyond traditional monthly cycles and contraception.
Former Los Angeles Rams running back Cullen Bryant played during the team’s super bowl run in 1980 and was physically the NFL’s largest kick returner in his era.
Ask any coach, any player, any football personnel — current or former — and they’ll tell you the team is a family. So needless to say, the death of star University of Connecticut cornerback Jasper Howard was the tragic loss of a brother. Teammate and punter Desi Cullen said of Howard, an expectant father, “As Jazz looks down on us, I can promise him and his family, that son our daughter will have 105 uncles.”
Anyone who dedicates their life to curing a disease deserves a great amount of respect. And anyone who dedicates their life to curing a disease mostly found in young children in the face of adversity deserves sainthood. Dr. Ignacio Ponseti treated and found a non-surgical cure for clubfoot in infants. His developed the treatment in the 1940’s, yet doctors continued to treat clubfoot with invasive surgery. It wasn’t until the early 90’s when parents began trading information on the Web that his method became widespread.