Gayle Ronan Sims, Philadelphia Inquirer obit writer, 61
Scott Brady
By JOHN F. MORRISON
Philadelphia Daily News
WHEN YOUNG people think about getting into journalism, they often have
visions of breaking the big story, exposing wrongdoing or kicking a
president out of office.
What they don't dream about is becoming obituary writers.
To someone like Gayle Ronan Sims, that's too bad.
Gayle was one of a breed of obit writers who bring compassion and love
to a job that not a lot of people want, who realize that even the most
humble subject deserves to be honored.
"Her job, as the Philadelphia Inquirer's chief obituary writer, was to
summarize the lives of those who rarely were known outside their
immediate community," wrote Adam Bernstein, Washington Post obituary
writer and her good friend.
"An obituary is a life, and Gayle wrote thousands of them. Her
patience, her eccentricities, her devotion to community made her
impact enormous."
Gayle died April 16 of multiple organ failure after a double lung
transplant. She was 61 and lived in Merion.
She had been homebound for months with respiratory problems, but
continued to write obituaries for the Inquirer, working at home
attached to an oxygen tank.
"Gayle had an ineradicable passion for her work, and a compassion for
the people she wrote about and their families," said Bill Marimow,
Inquirer editor. "Gayle's dedication was absolute and second to none,
and we are really going to miss her."
Marimow said that she approached the lung operation full of the
"courage, determination and passion that personified her work, and
personified her life in the newsroom."
Gayle had a knack for milking family members of every cogent detail
about the subject. She would stay on the phone chatting and
commiserating even after the facts were in.
"To Gayle, each new story seemed something more - an opportunity to
meet a new friend," Bernstein wrote. "Gayle lingered on the phone and
lingered and lingered, and by the end of her calls, she would often
call me up and say how wonderful a family member was and how she and
the person were going to meet up for lunch or dinner because they had
so much fun talking.
"She was extremely sympathetic, with a soft and soothing voice that
made probing questions seem as gentle as an invitation to have another
scoop of sugar in your coffee."
Gayle was a very private person who did not want her own obit written.
She didn't like talking about her past, her upbringing in Missouri,
her divorce after an early marriage.
She was born in St. Louis to Irish-Catholic parents. She graduated
from high school there as the class valedictorian and worked to pay
her own way through the University of Missouri. She started out
studying electrical engineering, but switched her major to journalism.
After a stint as a publicist in the governor's office and a job with
the Denver Post, she arrived at the Inquirer in 1987.
She started as an assistant on the news desk, moved on to be a page
designer, graphics coordinator, video editor and a features writer
before being assigned to obits in 2003.
She had a horrifying experience on April 4, 1991, when a plane
carrying Sen. H. John Heinz collided with a helicopter over the Merion
Elementary School where her son, Taylor, was a student.
Heinz and three others in the aircraft were killed, as were two first-
grade girls in the schoolyard. Taylor, who was inside the school, was
unhurt. Gayle rushed from the newsroom that morning to be with her
son.
She later became friends with Heinz's widow, Teresa, who later married
Sen. John Kerry.
At its convention this weekend in Charlotte, N.C., the Society of
Professional Obituary Writers plans to announce the creation of an
award named for her to be given to writers who carry on her legacy.
Besides her son, she is survived by a daughter, Jamie Sims, and her
former husband, James Sims.
No funeral service is planned.
http://www.philly.com/philly/obituaries/20090424_Gayle_Sims__empathetic_Inky_obit_writer.html
(Comment: How many versions of that lead have you read in
obituarists' obits? I hope he's not applying for the job.)