This past September, we came home from my grandfather’s funeral to find our house here on the Island burglarized. The back door had been broken and several thousand dollars in jewelry and small electronics were stolen. My suspicion that it was not a coincidence was confirmed when we learned that my parents’ home (in Bothell) was burglarized during the same time period. Both of our first and last names had been mentioned in an obituary that ran in the Seattle Times three days prior. The obituary provided the time and location of the viewing and funeral.

Ever since then, I cringe every time I see so much personal information in the obituaries published in the Reporter. My grandfather was 96 when he passed away and read the obituaries every day to learn of and attend his friends’ services, so our family did not hesitate to write a lengthy obituary for him and include all of the traditional information. We did not realize until it was too late that it would come at such a cost.

Please encourage your readers to either leave out identifying information, publish their obituaries after the funeral or memorial service has taken place, or consider hiring private security during the service. It would break my heart to hear about this happening to anyone else.

Kristin Rahlfs