We have two classmates that have taken their own lives. Do you list this information in their In Memory profile? I chose NOT to disclose this info, even though most people already know. I just feel you never know when one of their family members might stumble across it. In fact, I was contacted by the sister of one of my deceased classmates who wanted to provide me with info about her brother's death.

Just wondering how everyone else feels about this very sensitive issue.

We've had several suicides as well. I did an archive search in my hometown newspaper and posted the individual's obituaries. That way you're only posting what the family originally put out there.

When I couldn't find an obituary, because I don't know where the individual was living when he died, I simply post date of birth and date of death. Birth and death dates are sometimes easy to find online through local historical societies, again, assuming you know where they lived.

If all else fails, I might also post a note asking a friend of the person to write a memorial. If no one adds anything there isn't much you can do.

I think suicide should not be posted as the cause of death. I think the obit or date of death is enough. The family could be religious or not want people to know how the person died in the case of suicide.

We have one guy in our class who died as a stuntman for a Steven Segall movie. We put his cause of death in his memorial section because it was all over the newspapers and internet. Another guy died of cancer, which we stated, another we didn't know how he died and the last one dropped dead of a heart attack.

In order to be politically correct, I would never mention someone died of a suicide unless their obit stated it or you were given OK from the family.

Best thing to do is only post what info is public.

Thankfully we have no one pass in our class. But I don't even think you need to list a reason. I would just do a slide presentation and have the years listed of their lives and maybe put some background music in with your slide presentation. Hope this helps.

I would not mention suicide but try to say positive things about the deceased first and then end or refer to the suicide :
a. that he or she ended her life was unexpected or
completely unexpected
b. she/he took care of her ailing relative and took care
of her own death too.
c. sometimes good does not appear in the way one thinks
it will come so he/she lost the will to live and
ended his/her life.
Hope this helps !

Laura Edmonds wrote:

That's what I did. I created the slideshow for our homepage and near the beginning did a tasteful tribute to our 4 deceased classmates.

We have a suicide and also one member was murdered by her husband and then he killed himself. It does no good for anyone to put that in a memorial. I asked someone who knew them well to write a note for that page. Keeping like the obit in the paper is usually safe.

We have widows of some of our classmates who died, who want us to keep them informed about reunions. Surely wouldn't want someone to read something that would hurt them.

We are not including "cause of death" on ANY of our deceased classmates, only date of death. Along with those that had car accidents, we had one classmate die under some mysterious or shady circumstances, then one of his good friends committed suicide a few months later. I have had only a few inquiring emails about his cause of death, and I reply via email that it was suicide and that we don't know any other details.

This seems to satisfy those who were just honestly surprised by the news, and lets those know who are digging for dirt (gotta love small town rumor mills!) that they aren't going to get it from me. I figure that if they were supposed to know the gory saga, they would have already known all the details,(it happened 5 years ago, not recently) and would have been at the funerals.

We've had 2 people who have passed away in our class, one from cancer and one from suicide. In both cases I was able to go to our local newspaper website and copy the obituary from it into the In Memory section. I made sure the obit didn't mention anything about suicide, because I feel like it doesn't need to be "announced" on the website. And I'm pretty sure most obits don't mention when it is a suicide. Plus, with using the obits, it lets people know if there were kids or other surviving members of the family.