Bad obituary!

[kingrat]

That’s an obituary that appeared on 27 December 1972 in the Wisconsin State Journal of Madison for my father. It had to have been passed along from someone who knew my aunt Jane, who lived in Van Nuys California at the time. There were a few Weisses still around in Madison at the time (there’s only one now), so I don’t know who got everything garbled. It could easily have been someone who got it from one of my great aunts who got the info from my aunt.

For such a short piece, it got at least six items incorrect:

• George hadn’t lived in Madison.
• He hadn’t lived in Van Nuys either.
• He didn’t die in Van Nuys.
• The funeral was not in Van Nuys.
• His son is named Philip, not Phillips.
• His mother was no longer Mrs. George Weiss (they divorced in the 1960s).

I’ve run into a fair number of sources of information that were wrong. So far, this one is the wrongest. It’s a damn good thing I already knew the correct information, otherwise I might be searching all over Van Nuys for additional information. And for all I know, some of my current dead ends are wrong for the similarly bad information.

crossposted from King Rat.

Comments

[kingrat]

Although that might be the first time I made the newspaper.