Obit Goes Viral: Daughter Remembers Father's Sense of Humor and Love for Deviled Eggs
It's "hysterical," one Dallas-based lawyer has said on her father's obituary, which has become a viral hit.
While Amanda Lewis is mourning the loss of her father, Harry Stamps, it is his good-humored spirit that will live on across the Internet thanks to her. Lewis was handed the job of writing her father's obituary after he passed away last Saturday. Located in Irving, Lewis made the drive from Texas to her father's hometown of Mississippi, and took her time alone on the road to think of what she would say in the obituary.
One thing Lewis knew from the start was that this obituary wasn't going to read like a resume because she "didn't think listing where [her father] went to college and his résumé would do him justice."
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"I don't understand why people do a résumé for an obituary," she told the Dallas News. "It never captures the spirit of the person. My dad had such a big spirit. He had such a big personality."
And it is Lewis' portrayal of her father's "big spirit" that has caught the attention of readers across the world.
"Harry Weathersby Stamps, ladies' man, foodie, natty dresser, and accomplished traveler, died on Saturday, March 9, 2013," Lewis began in the obit. "He had a life-long love affair with deviled eggs, Lane cakes, boiled peanuts, Vienna [Vi-e-na] sausages on saltines, his homemade canned fig preserves, pork chops, turnip greens, and buttermilk served in martini glasses garnished with cornbread."
Stamps also had a good fashion sense and a rebellious spirit, according to his daughter: "Harry took fashion cues from no one. His signature every day look was all his: a plain pocketed T-shirt designed by the fashion house Fruit of the Loom, his black-label elastic waist shorts worn above the navel and sold exclusively at the Sam's on Highway 49."
She also noted her father's distaste for daylight savings time.
"He particularly hated Day Light Saving Time, which he referred to as The Devil's Time. It is not lost on his family that he died the very day that he would have had to spring his clock forward. This can only be viewed as his final protest," she said.
While Lewis is shocked by the reaction of the obituary on the Internet, now that it has become a viral hit, she is "pleased" with the way that her father was portrayed.
"I liked the idea of setting it up as kind of a contrast where at first you think it'll be a pretentious obituary - everyone's great when they die in an obituary - and then I tried to use what would have been his sense of humor to describe my dad," she said, according to the Dallas News. "And clearly it worked. I was pleased with it."
