Eulogy Examples for a Grandfather
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The man you knew was not the man his children knew
Most grandfathers soften. The man who worked second shift and came home tired, who was strict or absent or short-tempered with his own children, is often the same man who, thirty years later, had a garage, a truck, and all the time in the world for you. That is not a contradiction and it is not something you need to resolve at a lectern. It does mean there are two versions of him in that room, and yours may be the gentler one.
So say whose version you are giving. One sentence does it: “By the time I came along he was retired and he had nowhere to be, and I got a grandfather my mother never had a father.” That line is honest, it is generous to everyone, and it lets his children hear your memories without having to argue with them silently.
The material is usually practical rather than emotional. Grandfathers taught by standing next to you: how to bait a hook, back a trailer, hold a hammer, shuffle cards, drive a stick in an empty parking lot on a Sunday. Write those down as verbs and you will have most of a eulogy. The objects work too. The pocket knife, the cap, the coffee can of screws, the chair nobody else sat in.
Two practical warnings. Grandchildren get the facts wrong more often than any other speaker: the wrong branch of service, an invented rank, the plant he worked at for thirty-one years described as “some factory.” Ask his children and get one sentence exactly right rather than a paragraph roughly right. And if he was hard, especially at the end, you can say so in a single honest clause. Several people in that room drove him to appointments and will not believe a portrait of a saint.
Complete eulogies
Each of these is written to be read aloud. Everyone in them is invented, so take whichever fits and replace the specifics. The shape is what you are borrowing.
Eulogy for a grandfather, from a grandson, plainly told
≈2½ minutes · 309 words
I’m Ben. Ray Kowalczyk was my grandfather. Everybody called him Kow. My grandmother called him Raymond. I called him Papa until I was about fourteen and decided I was too old for it, and then I called him Papa again for the next twenty years.
Papa was born in Bay City in 1940. He worked at the sugar plant for thirty-three years, eleven of them on second shift, which is why my mother says she mostly remembers him asleep in a chair.
I got the other version. By the time I came along he was retired, he had a garage, and he had nowhere in particular to be.
He taught me to solder. He taught me to back a trailer, badly, in the church parking lot on a Sunday afternoon. He taught me that you buy the good drill bits one time. He let me take apart a lawn mower that was working perfectly well and he never told my mother.
And he asked me questions. That is the part I keep coming back to. He asked what I was reading, and what I thought about it, and then he argued with me about it, seriously, like I was a person. I was eleven years old. I did not understand how rare that was until I was thirty.
He was not much for saying things out loud. When my grandmother died he called me and said, “Well.” That was the entire phone call. I drove up that weekend and we cleaned the gutters and we did not discuss it once, and it was the right thing to do, and he knew it was, and so did I.
Papa, the drill bits are in the red case where you left them. I’m taking them. Thank you for the questions.
That’s all I have. He would have hated a long speech.
Eulogy for a grandfather, from a granddaughter, before military honors
≈4½ minutes · 617 words
Good morning. My name is Tessa Amundsen, and Walter Amundsen was my grandfather. I have four cousins here who could be doing this. They let me because I am the one who writes things down.
Grandpa was born in Fergus Falls in 1938. His father ran a feed store. He was drafted in 1960, served three years in the Army in Germany, and came home. That is the whole of what he would tell you about it. In a little while, at the cemetery, there will be a flag folded and a bugle, and I want to say now that he would have been embarrassed by the fuss, that he earned every second of it, and that we are doing it anyway.
He married my grandmother, Doris, in 1964. She died four years ago. If you want to understand my grandfather, understand this. He kept her handwriting on the kitchen calendar for four years. He would not turn the page past the month she died. That calendar still says August, and under the sixteenth it says “dentist, 2:15” in her hand, and he would not let a single one of us touch it.
He sold farm equipment for thirty-one years. He was good at it because he never pushed. He told a man once, in front of me, not to buy the bigger tractor. The man bought it somewhere else, and Grandpa said that was fine, he would sell him the parts eventually.
Now. The stories.
My grandfather had six stories. Six. We know them all. The one about the ice on the lake. The one about the dog that rode in the truck. The one about the sergeant from Alabama. The one where the bull got out. The one about my father’s first car, which my father disputes to this day. And the one about meeting Grandma at a wedding dance, which was the only one he ever slowed down for.
For years my cousins and I made a joke of it. We would count them off on our fingers under the table. Then last winter I sat in his kitchen and he told the one about the ice on the lake, and it came to me that I would rather hear it four hundred more times than not hear it again, and I had to go stand in the driveway for a minute.
So here it is, quickly, for anyone who never got it. He was twenty-two. He drove his father’s truck out onto the lake, because everybody did. It went through the ice up to the running boards and stopped, and he sat there in the cold for two hours until somebody came for him. And the line at the end was always the same. “I wasn’t scared. I was just sitting there thinking about what my dad was going to say.” He said it the same way every single time, and I can hear it right now.
He was stubborn. He would not use the cane. He would not stop driving until we made him, and he did not forgive that quickly, and I am not going to stand here and tell you he was easy this past year, because several people in this room took him to his appointments and know better than I do.
But he called every grandchild on our birthdays, every year, until this one. He never sang. He would just say, “Well. It’s the day.” That was the whole song, and I would give a great deal to get one more of those calls.
Grandpa, the calendar still says August. We will figure out what to do about it. Thank you for the stories. All six of them.
Short eulogy for a grandfather, when other people have already spoken
≈90 seconds · 181 words
I’m Danny. I’m one of my grandfather’s nine grandchildren, and I am going to keep this short, because two people have already spoken and he timed everything.
Grandpa was a baker. He got up at three in the morning for forty-one years and he never complained about it in front of me, which I now understand was a decision he made every single day.
Here is the thing I have. When I was fifteen and in a bad stretch, he started picking me up at five on Saturday mornings to help at the shop. He never asked me what was wrong. He handed me an apron and gave me a job and three hours of quiet with the radio on, every Saturday, for a year.
I don’t know for certain that he did that on purpose. I never asked him. I think he did.
If you are wondering what to do for somebody this week, that is the answer. Don’t ask them anything. Pick them up at five and give them a job.
Thank you for the Saturdays. Rest now, Abuelo.
Lines that carry weight
“By the time I came along he was retired and he had nowhere to be. I got a version of him my mother never did.”
The most useful line in a grandfather’s eulogy. It explains why your memories are warmer than his children’s without contradicting anybody, and it usually gets a small, grateful nod from the front row.
“He taught me to back a trailer, buy the good drill bits once, and never leave a job half finished.”
Three verbs beat three adjectives. Fill in your own three. This is the sentence people repeat to each other afterward in the parking lot.
“He was a man of few words.”
Worn through. Everyone has heard it. Prove it instead: quote the four words he actually said at the moment it mattered, and let the room work it out.
“He would have hated all this fuss.”
Almost always true and it gives the room permission to laugh once. Say it lightly and early. Do not repeat it, or it starts to sound like an apology for holding a funeral.
“In a little while there will be a flag folded and a bugle. He would have been embarrassed by it, and he earned it.”
For a veteran, when honors follow at the graveside. It prepares people for what is coming and lets you say the proud thing he never would have said himself.
“He had six stories and we knew every one of them, and I would rather hear the first one four hundred more times than not hear it again.”
For the grandfather who repeated himself. It turns what the family privately teased him about into the thing they miss, which is exactly what happened.
“I am not going to stand here and tell you he was easy this past year. Several people in this room drove him to his appointments and know better.”
Honest, brief, and respectful of the people who did the work. Say it once and move on. A eulogy can be truthful without becoming a reckoning.
“Home is the sailor, home from the sea, and the hunter home from the hill.”
Robert Louis Stevenson, from “Requiem.” Public domain, so you can read it in full. It suits a sailor, a veteran, a fisherman, a man who worked outdoors. If none of that was him, leave it out.
“He was the strongest man I ever knew.”
Vague on its own, and every grandson says it. Keep it only if the very next sentence names the specific thing he carried, literally or otherwise.
“Rest easy, Papa. We’ve got it.”
A plain closing. Short lines are far easier to get out than long ones when your voice starts to go, so make your last sentence the shortest one in the speech.
Delivering it
- Check the facts with his children first · Employer, job title, branch of service, years, the name of the town. Grandchildren get these wrong more often than any other speaker, and a wrong branch or a made-up rank is the thing people notice.
- One correct sentence about his service beats a paragraph · If he never talked about it, say that. “He was in the Army from 1960 to 1963, in Germany, and that is the whole of what he would tell you” is complete, accurate, and truer to him than anything you could add.
- If there are military honors, speak for two minutes less · The flag folding and Taps at the graveside give the day its real ending. Your job inside the church is to be warm and finish early.
- Name the objects · The pocket knife, the coffee can of screws, the cap, the chair nobody else sat in, the truck he would not replace. Objects give a room something to picture, and they hold up better than praise.
- Tell the repeated story once, in full · Set it up as the story everybody knew, then tell it properly, with his line at the end said the way he said it. Half the room will be mouthing along, and the other half finally gets to hear it.
- Ask the cousins what he taught each of them · You will get five different skills and one shared answer. The overlap is your closing line, and the differences show a man who paid attention to each of you separately.
- You do not have to reconcile the two versions of him · You are not summing up his life or issuing a verdict on his marriage or his parenting. You are describing the grandfather you had. His children will do their own accounting, on their own time.
- You are allowed to do less than you think · Ninety honest seconds about the Saturdays he picked you up is a better eulogy than four careful minutes about a man nobody quite recognizes. Write the small true thing and stop there.
The general method, meaning structure, length and how to get through it without breaking down, is in how to write a eulogy, and there are twelve more examples on the main eulogy examples page.
Other relationships
Common questions
Can a grandchild give the eulogy for a grandfather?
How do I write about his military service if he never talked about it?
What if my parent had a hard relationship with him?
How long should it be if there are military honors?
Should I mention my grandmother, who died before him?
What if I only really knew him as an old man?
Keep reading
- How to Write a EulogyA step-by-step way to write and deliver a eulogy, including how long it should be, what to say first, and how to get through it.
- Funeral Speech ExamplesShort funeral speech examples for anyone asked to say a few words, including what to do if you are not the main speaker.
- Funeral PoemsPublic-domain funeral poems you can print in a program or on a card, with any cut marked, plus the modern ones families ask for most, listed by title and poet with a note on which you can print.