The Lives They Lived -- NY Times Magazine

[Hyfler/Rosner]

This is the annual roundup of some of the more interesting
stories. The entire magazine is devoted to the subject.
I've included the weekly columns called "The Way We Eat",
"Lives," and "Consumed." as they are actually obituaries.
The photos are wonderful. Even if you think you've read
enough obituaries for someone this year, read more. These
are pretty terrific.

December 25, 2005
The New York Times Magazine
The Lives They Lived
Introduction

This year, like all years, brought the deaths of many
notable people. Among them were Rosa Parks, Pope John Paul
II, William H. Rehnquist, Saul Bellow, Peter Jennings,
Eugene J. McCarthy, August Wilson, Hans Bethe and Richard
Pryor. The year 2005 was also marked by the 2,000th death of
a member of the American armed forces in Iraq and of an
untold number of Iraqi civilians. Violence, both man-made
and natural - especially the earthquake in South Asia that
killed some 70,000 - claimed thousands upon thousands of
lives around the world.

This 12th annual end-of-the-year issue does not purport to
be definitive. Instead, it is an idiosyncratic selection,
one driven primarily by the whims, interests and passions of
the magazine's editors and writers. Some names, like Sandra
Dee, Frank Perdue, Luther Vandross, Rose Mary Woods and
Constance Baker Motley, are probably familiar. Others are
less well known: Elizabeth McFarland Hoffman, the poetry
editor of Ladies' Home Journal; Thurl Ravenscroft, the voice
of Tony the Tiger; Joseph Frelinghuysen, whose unlikely
escape as a prisoner of war during World War II was made
possible by a generous and courageous Italian family; and
Lawrence Celestine, a New Orleans police officer who took
his own life shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit. Through
stories, ideas and images, we seek to capture the lives they
lived.