52 McGs.: The Best Obituaries from Legendary New York Times Writer Robert McG. Thomas Jr.
By La Gringa
Most of us would like to be remembered -- at least just a little bit -- after we depart this life.
We could do a whole lot worse than to have someone as gracious and gifted with words as Robert McG. Thomas Jr. write our obituaries.
Thomas was a career newsman who, after years of cops beats, sports writing and editing, hit his career zenith as an obituary writer for the New York Times. Over five years, he developed a cult following as he wrote obits for 657 of this world’s unsung and off-the-wall folks who marched to their own drummers.
In 52 McGs.: The Best Obituaries from Legendary New York Times Writer Robert McG. Thomas Jr., editor Chris Calhoun has assembled the crème de la crème of Thomas’ work.
Don’t look here for words memorializing legendary Hollywood stars and renown robber barons. Thomas specialized in obits about wacky goat herders, mob fixers and industrialists of products such as baskets and Kitty Litter.
Says Thomas Mallon in the book’s foreword: “…the burly six-foot-four Thomas was ready to escort a parade of eccentrics and unknowns through a needle’s eye toward improbable fame and, for all one knows, heaven.”
One entry, with the headline “Charles McCartney, Known for Travels with Goats, Dies at 97,” is graced with this lead by Thomas: “You take a fellow who looks like a goat, travels around with goats, eats with goats, lies down among goats and smells like a goat and it won’t be long before people will be calling him the Goat Man.”
Thomas knew how to have fun with writing, though never at his subject’s expense. As he wrote of basket king and native Ohioan David Longaberger: ”…Longaberger, a born basket weaver and business visionary who figured out that the way to make basket weaving pay was to get a lot of other people to do the weaving and lot more to do the selling, died on Wednesday at his home outside Newark, Ohio.”
In just a few words, Thomas deftly sketched his subjects while often provoking a wry smile from the reader. As he wrote of Emil Sitka, an actor who appeared in 35 Three Stooges’ shorts: “Since the death of the last of the Stooges…,Mr. Sitka had been widely regarded by the Stooges’ dedicated fans as the last living link to a madcap, slapstick era that to virtually everyone else’s dismay shows no signs of going away.”
Yet not all of the entries are humorous. Thomas was equally adept at hauntingly beautiful send-offs for those who would otherwise have passed into obscurity. Of a Holocaust survivor who sought solace in the splendor of flowers, Thomas wrote: “Fred Rosenstiel, who spent his life planting gardens to brighten the lives of his fellow New Yorkers, and to alleviate an abiding sadness in his heart, died on Tuesday…”
Thomas’ own obit, written by Michael T. Kaufman is included at the end of the collection.
“Mr. Thomas saw himself as the sympathetic stranger at the wake listening to the friends and survivors of the deceased, alert for the moment when one of them would tell a memorable tale that could never have made its way into Who’s Who or a resume but that just happened to define a life.”
Indeed.
Little Havana Gringa treasures the sea, sunshine and Cuban coffee.
52 McGs.: The Best Obituaries from Legendary New York Times Writer Robert McG. Thomas Jr. is a collection edited by Chris Calhoun, with a foreword by Thomas Mallon (Scribner; $20).
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