Write the obituary for me

This is hard to write in the week you have to write it. Put down what you know, in any order, in the boxes below. You get back a full obituary in the standard structure, a short version for the paid notice, and a eulogy you can read in five minutes, using only what you told us. Edit anything. Take your time; the link stays open for seven days.

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Full name, including nickname or maiden nameDate and place of birth; date and place of death; ageCircumstances, as much or as little as you want saidTheir life: parents, growing up, school, marriage, work, moves, retirementWhat they were like: the specific things. Food, hobbies, sayings, habits, what people came to them forSurvived by (names, relationships, spouses, towns) and preceded in death byService details: visitation, funeral or celebration, dates, times, places, addresses, receptionMemorial preference (charity, or "in lieu of flowers", or an action)For the eulogy: two or three stories, in your own words, however roughWho will read the eulogy, and their relationship to the personToneYour email (to unlock the result after payment)

One-time $19. No subscription. Paid securely through Stripe. Nothing is written until payment clears. Your result stays available for 7 days, then it is deleted from our servers.

What you get: a sample

A full obituary from the free examples; the tool also returns the short notice and a eulogy.

Margaret Ann Holloway, 76, of Cedar Falls, died peacefully at home on Tuesday, September 9, 2026, with her children beside her.

Margaret was born on March 3, 1950, in Waterloo to Frank and Dorothy Kessler. She grew up on the family dairy farm, the second of five children, and graduated from Waterloo East High School in 1968. She married Thomas Holloway on June 14, 1970, at St. Patrick's Church, and they made their home in Cedar Falls, where they raised three children and spent 52 years together until Tom's death in 2022.

For 31 years Margaret taught second grade at Lincoln Elementary. Former students still stopped her in the grocery store, and she remembered every one of them by name. She retired in 2005 and immediately took over the church's Wednesday soup kitchen, which she ran until last spring.

She was known for her rhubarb pie, her refusal to let anyone leave her house without a container of leftovers, and the vegetable garden that fed half the block. She kept a bird feeder outside the kitchen window and could name every visitor. She read a mystery novel a week, played euchre on Thursdays for forty years, and never once lost her temper at a grandchild.

Margaret is survived by her children, Susan (David) Ramirez of Des Moines, Michael (Karen) Holloway of Cedar Falls, and Laura Holloway of Minneapolis; seven grandchildren, Emma, Jacob, Olivia, Ben, Claire, Nora, and Sam; two great-grandchildren; her sisters, Carol Bauer and Janet Kessler; and her brother, Robert Kessler. She was preceded in death by her husband, Tom, her parents, and her brother, William.

A visitation will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. on Friday, September 12, at Richardson Funeral Home, 410 Main Street, Cedar Falls. A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. on Saturday, September 13, at St. Patrick's Church, with burial to follow at Fairview Cemetery. A lunch will be served in the parish hall afterward, and the family asks that you stay.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be directed to the Lincoln Elementary library fund or the St. Patrick's soup kitchen.

Questions

Is this respectful?

It uses your words and your facts, arranged in the structure obituaries have followed for a century. Nothing is invented. Most families edit a sentence or two and use the rest.

Can I change it afterward?

Yes. Download Word, edit anything, or copy the text into the funeral home's form.

What if I do not have all the details?

Leave boxes blank. Missing service details get a marked space you can fill in later. The result link stays open for seven days.

Why is it paid?

It costs us money each time it runs. $19 is less than one line of a newspaper notice in most cities. If it does not help, email [email protected] and we refund it.