OBITUARY TRIBUTES AND TAKEDOWNS

Obituaries are a lot like history books. They are told from the perspective of the narrator. I’ve seen loved ones create generous obituaries that read a little more like fiction than fact and I’ve seen family members intentionally leave out certain survivors out of spite. I watched one woman’s family friend insert herself prominently into the obituary she drafted for the family, even pushing the minister out of the way to read it herself at the funeral when she caught wind of family members asking him to remove mention of her during the service.

But there’s a new trend that is a bit more unsettling than that: speaking one’s piece in print. It usually happens with children of estranged parents and they don’t hold back.

The latest one to make the revenge obit rounds was Robert Boehm of Texas. When he died on October 6, 2024, his children wrote a scathing obituary. An edited version follows:

Robert was born in Winters, TX, to the late Walter Boehm and Betty Smith on May 6, 1950, after which God immediately and thankfully broke the mold and attempted to cover up the evidence.

This lack of military service was probably for the best, as when taking up shooting as a hobby in his later years, he managed to blow not one, but two holes in the dash of his own car on two separate occasions, which unfortunately did not even startle, let alone surprise, his dear wife Dianne, who was much accustomed to such happenings in his presence and may have actually been safer in the jungles of Vietnam the entire time.

Earlier this year, in February, God finally showed mercy upon Dianne, getting her the hell out of there for some well-earned peace and quiet …We have all done our best to enjoy/weather Robert’s antics up to this point, but he is God’s problem now.

The Boehm children are hardly the first to publicly declare their disdain for a parent. When Leslie Ray ‘Popeye’ Charping died in 2017, his daughter was determined to turn his obituary into a public apology for her father’s actions as well as a platform for domestic abuse awareness.

At a young age, Leslie quickly became a model example of bad parenting combined with mental illness and a complete commitment to drinking, drugs, womanizing and being generally offensive…Leslie’s hobbies included being abusive to his family, expediting trips to heaven for the beloved family pets and fishing, which he was less skilled with than the previously mentioned. Leslie’s life served no other obvious purpose. Leslie’s passing proves that evil does in fact die and hopefully marks a time of healing and safety for all.

While Charping’s obituary was removed from the funeral home’s website after public outcry, Boehm’s obit remains online. 

There are many more. In 2023, Linda Stull’s daughter Gayle recounted years of physical abuse by her mother and sexual abuse by her mother’s husbands and boyfriends which she named and explained in great detail.