Obituary Examples for an Uncle
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What is different about writing for an uncle
Most people writing an uncle’s obituary are writing about the version of him that faced the children in the family: the holidays, the truck, the jokes, the folding chair at the ball field. That is real and it belongs in the obituary. It is also about a third of his life. Before you print anything, read the draft to one of his brothers or sisters. They have the work history, the years of service, the first marriage, and the reason he moved to Texas in 1979.
The paperwork problem is worse for men of his generation than people expect. Discharge papers, pension records and union cards often sat in one drawer in one house, and that house may already have been cleared. Funeral directors request military records as a matter of routine and can usually get what is needed for honors at the graveside; ask them at the arrangement meeting. Other places the facts turn up: his parents’ obituary for the sibling names, a county birth record, an old employer’s pension office, and whichever cousin keeps the family tree.
There is also the question of what to do with the parts that are complicated. Some uncles drifted. Some had a stretch nobody talks about, a marriage that ended badly, or years when the phone calls stopped. You are not obliged to explain any of it, and an obituary is not the place to settle it. A sentence like “he kept his own counsel and his own hours, and his family loved him as he was” is honest, kind, and closes the subject.
One more thing, and it is meant plainly: if you are writing this because nobody else will, you are allowed to keep it short. His name, his dates, where he was born, what he did for a living, who is left, and where to come. That is a whole obituary. Nobody is grading it.
Complete examples
Every name, town and employer below is invented. Copy whichever is closest to your situation and change the details line by line. Most people have a first draft inside twenty minutes that way.
Short notice for a veteran with no children
107 words · paid newspaper death notice
Raymond Earl Dugan, 83, of Marlow Bend, Texas, died on June 6, 2026, at the Tenley Ridge Veterans Home.
Ray was born on March 2, 1943 in Marlow Bend to Earl and Vivian Dugan. He served in the United States Army from 1962 to 1966 and worked thirty-one years as a machinist at Verrick Tool & Die.
He is survived by his sisters, Dorothy Kessler and Jean Dugan Wolfe, and by fourteen nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his parents and his brother, Earl Jr.
Graveside services with military honors will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, June 12, at Marlow Bend Cemetery.
Standard obituary for the uncle who came to everything
280 words · funeral home website
Anthony Michael “Tony” Pisarek, 71, of New Aldrich, New York, died on September 30, 2026, at home, with his brother beside him.
Tony was born on April 14, 1955 in New Aldrich, the second of four children of Michael and Sophie Pisarek. He graduated from New Aldrich Central in 1973 and went straight into the pressroom at the Aldrich Bulletin, where he worked nights for twenty-nine years, until the paper was sold.
Tony married young and divorced young, and after that he built a life around other people’s children. He came to the games. All of them, including the ones in the rain, the ones two hours away, and the seventh-grade ones nobody else came to. There was a folding chair in the trunk of his car from 1988 until the week he died.
He taught six nieces and nephews to drive a stick shift in the lot behind Saint Casimir’s, on the grounds that their parents did not have the patience and he did. He fixed things for people who had not asked. He made a coffee cake every Christmas Eve that nobody has ever managed to reproduce.
He is survived by his brother, Frank Pisarek (Donna) of New Aldrich; his sisters, Sophie Doyle of Tannery Hill, Vermont, and Regina Pisarek of Corwith; nine nieces and nephews; and eighteen great-nieces and great-nephews. He was preceded in death by his parents.
A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, October 10, at Saint Casimir Church, with burial at Holy Cross Cemetery. Visitation will be held Friday from 4 to 7 p.m. at Rowan Funeral Chapel.
The family asks that anyone who has one bring a folding chair.
Standard obituary for an uncle who kept to himself
188 words · when the family was not close in recent years
Dale Robert Whitmore, 74, of Braddock Hollow, West Virginia, died on August 1, 2026, at Kestrel Regional Medical Center.
Dale was born on November 9, 1951 in Braddock Hollow to Robert and Alma Whitmore. He worked underground for Halloran Coal for nineteen years and afterward in maintenance for the Braddock Hollow schools, retiring in 2014.
He liked country music, cold weather and the first hour of the morning. He kept a garden that fed more people than he ever admitted to feeding, and he left vegetables on porches without knocking.
Dale kept his own counsel and his own hours. His family understood that about him and loved him as he was.
He is survived by his sister, Wanda Whitmore Cline, of Braddock Hollow; his nephews, Robert Cline and Dennis Cline; his niece, Sharon Cline Bays; and four great-nephews. He was preceded in death by his parents and his brother, Gary.
A graveside service will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Friday, August 7, at Pine Ridge Cemetery. At Dale’s request, there will be no visitation. The family thanks the staff at Kestrel Regional for their care of him.
Full obituary for the uncle who became a second father
385 words · memorial page and the funeral program
Clarence Wendell “Sonny” Brooks, 86, of Tenley Ridge, Georgia, died on May 22, 2026, at home, with his nieces and nephews taking turns in the chair beside him.
Sonny was born on January 3, 1940 in Tenley Ridge to Wendell and Ozella Brooks, the sixth of nine children. He left school at sixteen to work, went back at twenty-two, and finished his diploma at night while working days at the Kestrel Paper Mill. He mentioned this to every young person in the family exactly once.
He served in the United States Army from 1958 to 1962 and came home to thirty-four years at the mill, the last nineteen as a shift supervisor. He held his card in Local 812 for his whole working life and served two terms as its recording secretary.
In 1971 his sister Odessa Mae was widowed with four children under ten. Sonny moved four streets over and stayed. He did not adopt anybody and he did not make a speech about it. He drove the route, paid what needed paying, sat in the front row at four graduations, and walked two nieces down the aisle.
He married Delores Fenner in 1979. They had forty-one years together, until her death in 2020, and had, as he put it, the good sense never to argue in front of the children.
Sonny fished the Tenley River without much to show for it, cooked for the church homecoming every August, belonged to VFW Post 2142 for fifty-one years, and was never once heard to raise his voice.
He is survived by his sisters, Odessa Mae Brooks Sharp and Ruth Brooks Adderly, both of Tenley Ridge; his brother, Alvin Brooks of Marlow Bend, Texas; thirty-one nieces and nephews; and more great-nieces and great-nephews than the family has been able to count this week. He was preceded in death by his wife, Delores; his parents; and his brothers Wendell Jr., James, Curtis and Otis.
Homegoing services will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, May 30, at Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, with burial at Tenley Ridge Memorial Gardens. Military honors will be rendered at the graveside. The family will receive friends on Friday from 5 to 7 p.m. at Ackerley Funeral Home.
In place of flowers, the family asks for donations to the Mount Pleasant scholarship fund.
Phrases you can borrow
These are the lines families reach for when the plain facts are down and the obituary still feels flat.
“He taught half this family to drive, and all of it to fish.”
The single most useful sentence in most uncles’ obituaries. Swap in whatever he actually taught people. It does the work that ten adjectives cannot.
“He is survived by his sisters, Dorothy and Jean, and by fourteen nieces and nephews, every one of whom called him Uncle Ray.”
The survivors line when there is no spouse and no children. Siblings first, nieces and nephews in the place children would take.
“He never married. He was, however, at every graduation, every wedding and most of the ball games.”
Answers the obvious question and immediately moves past it. Only use it if the second half is true.
“He never met a stranger.”
Sincere, and so widely used that it has stopped meaning anything. If he really was like that, show it instead: he knew the name of every cashier at the Marlow Bend market.
“He was a man of few words, and the few were usually worth waiting for.”
Common, but it earns its place if you follow it with something he actually said or did. On its own it is filler.
“In his later years he kept his own counsel and his own hours.”
Honest wording for a man who withdrew from things. It neither apologizes for him nor pretends otherwise, and most families are relieved to have the sentence.
“He worked thirty-one years at Verrick Tool & Die and was proud of every one of them.”
For the uncle whose work was the spine of his life. Name the employer and the number of years; men of that generation counted them.
“Military honors will be rendered at the graveside.”
Standard wording, and it belongs in the service paragraph rather than the life story. Confirm with the funeral director that honors are actually arranged before you print it.
“Members of VFW Post 2142 will conduct a service on Friday evening prior to visitation.”
Veterans’ posts and fraternal lodges usually hold their own rite, separate from the funeral. Give the day and time, and tell the post yourself rather than assuming someone has.
“He was Uncle Ray to three generations of this street, and related to almost none of them.”
For the honorary uncle. Say it outright. It reads as affection, and it explains to strangers why the church is full.
What to watch for
- Ask about the discharge papers on day one · Military honors, a flag and burial in a national cemetery all depend on proof of service. Funeral directors request the records as a matter of course, but it takes time. Raise it at the arrangement meeting rather than the day before the service.
- Get the facts from his brothers and sisters · Nieces and nephews remember the man at the holidays. His siblings know the years, the employers, the first marriage and the middle name. One phone call to the oldest sibling will fix more than an hour of guessing.
- Do not guess a date · If nobody is sure of the exact birth date, write the year and the town. A wrong date in print follows a family around, because obituaries get copied into genealogy sites and stay there.
- Check the branch, the years and the spelling · Veterans and their friends notice errors immediately. Confirm the branch, the years of service, and the name of the unit or ship. If you are not certain of the unit, leave it out and say the branch and the years.
- Tell the post, the lodge and the union · A veterans’ post, a fraternal order or a local union will often send members, supply pallbearers, or hold a short rite of their own. They cannot do any of it if nobody calls them, and they are usually glad to be asked.
- Do not upgrade the relationship · If the family had not seen much of him for years, write a respectful obituary rather than a close one. People at the service will know, and a false closeness is the one thing that makes readers uncomfortable.
- Give the funeral home as the contact, not a house · When there is no spouse or children, families sometimes print a nephew’s address or phone number for cards. Use the funeral home’s address instead. A published obituary tells strangers when a house will be empty.
- Say who is receiving him at the cemetery · Many single uncles are buried with their parents or a brother. Naming the cemetery and the family plot tells older relatives what they want to know and saves a round of phone calls.
The general rules on length, the order of survivors and what to leave out are on the main obituary examples page, and the step-by-step method is in how to write an obituary.
Other relationships
Common questions
Who arranges the funeral if he had no spouse or children?
How do we arrange military honors?
What do we write if we were not close to him?
Do we name all the nieces and nephews?
He was called Uncle but was not actually related. Can we say that?
How long should an uncle’s obituary be?
Keep reading
- How to Write an ObituaryA calm, six-step way to write an obituary when you don’t know where to start, with the exact information to gather and full examples.
- Obituary TemplatesSix fill-in-the-blank obituary templates: traditional, short, newspaper, celebration of life, military and faith. Free to use and copy.
- Short Obituary ExamplesShort obituary examples between 50 and 150 words, written to fit newspaper line limits without losing the person.
- Obituary FormatThe standard obituary format explained section by section, with the order newspapers and funeral homes expect and how long each part should be.