Category: death

Librarian surprises school with $4 million gift

On By A.P.In death, generosityLeave a comment


Robert Morin graduated from the University of New Hampshire in 1961, and he had a passion for books and movies.

by Mary Jo DiLonardo

Robert Morin spent nearly 50 years working as a librarian on the campus of his alma mater, the University of New Hampshire. Because he was known to live simply, few at the Durham university knew that the long-time employee had amassed a $4 million estate. Morin died in March 2015, but this week the school announced he had left his fortune to the university.

“Bob’s demonstrated commitment to UNH through his philanthropy is tremendously inspiring,” university President Mark Huddleston said in a statement. “His generous gift allows us to address a number of university priorities.”

Morin loved movies, and from 1979 to 1997 he watched more than 22,000 videos. After he satisfied his passion for movies, he turned his attention to books, deciding to read — in chronological order — every book published in the United States from 1930 to 1940 except for children’s books, textbooks and books about cooking and technology. When he died at the age of 77, he had gotten as far as 1938, the year he was born.

According to his obituary, his job at the library was to write short descriptions of DVDs, enter ISBN, or International Standard Book Numbers, for CDs, and to catalog books of sheet music.

Morin’s financial advisor, Edward Mullen, told the New Hampshire Union Leader that his client was able to accumulate so much wealth because he rarely spent money. He drove an older vehicle and ate frozen dinners.

“He never went out,” Mullen said.

In the last year or so of his life, Morin lived in an assisted living facility where he developed a new passion: football. He became an avid fan, watching games on TV, learning the rules of the game along with the names of the players and the teams.

Mullen said Morin chose to give all his savings to his alma mater because he didn’t have any relatives he wanted to leave it to. Morin trusted the university would spend the money wisely for its students.

The only specific request in the donation was $100,000 dedicated to the Dimond Library where Morin worked. The money will “provide scholarships for work-study students, support staff members who continue their studies in library science, and renovate and upgrade one of the library’s multimedia rooms.”

Of the remaining funds, Huddleston said $2.5 million will help launch an expanded and centrally located career center for students and alumni, and $1 million will go toward a video scoreboard at the school’s new football stadium.

http://www.mnn.com/money/personal-finance/stories/librarian-surprises-school-4-million-gift

Teen dies after girlfriend gives fatal hickey

On By A.P.In death, KebmodeeLeave a comment

By Cimaron Neugebauer

A 17-year-old has died after a hickey reportedly took his life, according to a local news outlet in Mexico City, Mexico.

Doctors say the teen began having convulsions while at the dinner table eating with his family in Mexico City. Before dinner, Julio Macias Gonzalez had spent the evening with his 24-year-old girlfriend, who is now in hiding.

Medical professionals believe the suction of the hickey resulted in a blood clot for the teen. Doctors believe the blood clot traveled to his brain and caused the fatal stroke.

This isn’t the first time for a passionate kiss on the neck to land someone in the hospital.

In a 2010 case, was reported in a New Zealand Medical Journal where a 44-year-old woman was rushed to the hospital after losing movement in her arm due to a hickey on her neck, Doctors weren’t sure why the woman was having a stroke, but then noticed a bruise on her neck and realized the suction on a major artery created a blood clot, which traveled to her heart, causing a minor stroke.

http://wlos.com/news/offbeat/teen-dies-after-girlfriend-gives-fatal-hickey-lover-now-on-the-run

Thanks to Kebmodee for bringing this to the It’s Interesting community.

Book lovers live longer, scientists say.

On By A.P.In ageing, deathLeave a comment

By Amy Ellis Nutt

A recent study by Yale University researchers, published online in the journal Social Science & Medicine, concluded that “book readers experienced a 20 percent reduction in risk of mortality over the 12 years of follow-up compared to non-book readers.”

The data was obtained from a longitudinal Health and Retirement Study sponsored by the National Institute on Aging. The study looked at 3,635 subjects, all older than 50, whom the researchers divided into three groups: those who didn’t read books, those who read up to 3.5 hours a week and those who read more than 3.5 hours a week.

The findings were remarkable: Book readers survived almost two years longer than those who didn’t crack open a book.

Accounting for variables such as education level, income and health status, the study found that those who read more than 3.5 hours weekly were 23 percent less likely to die during that 12-year period. Those who read up to 3.5 hours — an average of a half-hour a day — were 17 percent less likely.

In other words, just like a healthy diet and exercise, books appear to promote a “significant survival advantage,” the authors concluded.

Why or how that’s the case remains unclear; the research showed only an association between book reading and longevity, not a causal relationship. But the findings are not so surprising. Other recent research showed that reading novels appears to boost both brain connectivity and empathy.

Book buying has increased annually during the past few years. At least 652 million print and electronic books were sold in the United States in 2015, according to Nielsen BookScan, the main data collector for the book publishing industry.

The bad news: Americans barely crack the top 25 when it comes to which countries read the most books. India, Thailand and China are ranked one, two and three by the World Culture Index, while the United States comes in 23rd, behind countries such as Egypt, Australia, Turkey and Germany.

The better news is that 80 percent of young adults in America read a book last year, compared with 68 percent of those between the ages of 50 and 64, according to a Pew Research Center survey.

Unfortunately, the Yale researchers said longevity was not increased by reading newspapers.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/08/09/the-best-reason-for-reading-book-lovers-live-longer-say-scientists/?campaign_id=A100&campaign_type=Email

Couple married 63 years die minutes apart in same room

On By A.P.In deathLeave a comment

By Doug Criss

It’s said that love is the strongest force in the world. If that’s true, then a married couple from South Dakota proves that not even death is strong enough to keep loved ones apart.

A funeral will be held in Platte, South Dakota, on Monday for a couple married for more than six decades who died just minutes apart on the same day and in the same room.

Henry and Jeanette De Lange both died on July 31, just 20 minutes apart in their room at a nursing home.

The De Langes had been married for 63 years.

Lee De Lange, one of their sons, told CNN affiliate KSFY there was a divine quality to having both parents pass at nearly the same time.

“We’re calling it a beautiful act of God’s providential love and mercy,” he said. “You don’t pray for it because it seems mean but you couldn’t ask for anything more beautiful.”

Jeanette De Lange, 87 and suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, died first at 5:10 p.m. Family gathered with her was reading the Bible at the time.

“We read Psalm 103. We didn’t quite get done,” said Lee De Lange. “She passed away very, very peacefully. Incredibly peacefully.”

Lee said his brother told his father, 86 and fighting prostate cancer, “mom’s gone to heaven” and that he didn’t have to fight anymore. He could let go and join her if he wished, the son added.

Twenty minutes later, at 5:30 p.m., Henry De Lange did just that. His children remember him briefly opening his eyes and looking at his wife before he died.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/08/us/married-couple-dies-minutes-apart-trnd/index.html

Man left his family and started a new one using a dead man’s identity

On By A.P.In Crime, deathLeave a comment

By Peter Holley

For more than two decades, Terry Jude Symansky appeared to lead an ordinary life in Pasco County, Fla.

He had a wife and a teenage son, owned property, and “worked odd jobs,” according to the Tampa Bay Times.

The only problem, police say, was that Terry Jude Symansky was not really Terry Jude Symansky. He was actually an Indiana man named Richard Hoagland who vanished 25 years ago and has been considered dead since 2003, the paper reported.

The lie lasted more than two decades. In the end, a single online search was all it took for the ruse to unravel.

The truth began to surface when a nephew of the real Terry Symansky — who drowned in 1991 at age 33 — started an Ancestry.com family search, according to ABC affiliate WFLA. Knowing that his uncle was dead, the nephew was surprised to find someone with the same name living in central Florida.

“He looks up his real uncle Terry Symansky and realizes that he died in 1991, which the family knew,” Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco told the station. “He then starts scrolling down the page and sees more details that Terry Symanksy was remarried in 1995. He owns property in Pasco County, Florida.”

Fearing that their fake relative might try to harm them, family members waited three years before eventually contacting authorities in April, police told the Tampa Bay Times.

Hoagland, 63, was arrested Wednesday and charged with fraudulent use of personal identification, the paper reported.

How exactly Hoagland came to assume the identity of Terry Symansky — who moved to Florida from Cleveland to work as a commercial fisherman — remains a complicated mystery.

The Tampa Bay Times reported that investigators suspect it occurred as follows:

Deputies think Hoagland stole Terry Symansky’s identity like this: Hoagland once lived with Terry Symansky’s father in Palm Beach. Hoagland found a copy of Terry Symansky’s 1991 death certificate and used it to obtain a birth certificate from Ohio. With the birth certificate in hand, he then applied by mail for an Alabama driver’s license and used that to obtain a Florida driver’s license. That’s how deputies think Hoagland came to spend more than two decades living in Florida as Terry Symansky.

As Terry Symansky, he married Mary Hossler Hickman in 1995. The couple lived in Zephyrhills. He also fashioned a medical card to obtain a private pilot’s license as Terry Symansky from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Before he began the process of assuming a new identity, Hoagland left his old life — which included a wife and four children — behind in Indiana, according to Bay News 9. His former wife in Indiana told police that Hoagland had three businesses related to insurance.

She told investigators that Hoagland told her in the early 1990s that he was wanted by the FBI for embezzling millions of dollars and had no choice but to leave town, according to the Tampa Bay Times. In reality, police told the paper, Hoagland told investigators that he left Indiana to get away from his wife.

Eventually, the paper reported, Hoagland’s wife assumed her husband was dead.

“This is a selfish coward,” Nocco said. “This is a person who has lived his life destroying others.”

Gerry Beyer, a law professor at Texas Tech University who studies identity theft, told the Tampa Bay Times that Hoagland’s alleged actions are unusual because most identity thieves steal people’s names to commit crimes.

He told the paper that the fact that the real Symansky never married or had children made him a “perfect” candidate for identity theft.

Yet, he noted, Hoagland’s ability to maintain the lie for more than two decades was shocking. It was a lie that was probably made easier, Beyer said, because it began before digital records were commonplace.

“You just never know,” Beyer told the paper. “It will all catch up with you.”

Hoagland’s Florida tenants told Bay News 9 that they were shocked that their landlord was not who he said he was.

“We’ve been personal with him quite a bit, and Terry’s the nicest guy anyone could ever meet,” Gregory Yates told the station.

“He’s a really nice guy, and he’s a really good landlord,” Dean Lockwood, another tenant, said. “Never would have known this, couldn’t imagine this was happening.”

Perhaps most damaged by Hoagland’s hoax, police said, was his wife in Florida, who learned about her husband’s alleged crimes only when detectives showed up at her door last week.

“For 20 years, she’s been lied to, so now she doesn’t know what she has to do as far as whether her marriage is even legal — what’s going to happen to all the properties they own, their bank accounts,” Detective Anthony Cardillo told Bay News 9. “The son has the last name Symansky.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/07/24/he-left-his-family-then-he-started-a-new-one-using-a-dead-mans-identity-police-say/?tid=pm_national_pop_b

Slow running is better in the long run

On By A.P.In death, exerciseLeave a comment

by JENN SAVEDGE

A new study has found that slower runners live longer than those who push the pace

For the study, which was published recently in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, researchers surveyed about 5,000 people, including 1,100 runners and 4,000 people who identified themselves as “non-runners.” Participants in the non-running group did not engage in any type of regular exercise or strenuous activity.

Those in the “running” group were split into three groups depending upon how far, how fast and how often they ran. The study participants were men and women of various ages who were considered relatively healthy.

Researchers checked back with the group after 10 years and found (not surprisingly) that the runners had longer lifespans than their sedentary peers. But what was surprising was the longevity difference among the runners. Those with the lowest rate of death were the light joggers, folks who ran roughly two to three times per week for about 1 to 2.4 miles per session at a speed self-described as “slow.”

Next in line in terms of lifespan were the moderate runners, followed by the speedsters, who tied with the non-runners for highest mortality rate. That’s right, those who ran hard and fast had the same lifespan as those who never left the couch.

http://www.mnn.com/health/fitness-well-being/blogs/slow-running-better-for-your-health

Ghostly image captured in fatal accident photo

On By A.P.In deathLeave a comment

By Doug Criss

Many people think a Kentucky man captured a supernatural moment when he took a picture of a fatal motorcycle crash earlier this week.

Saul Vazquez said his father snapped the accident scene as he passed by it Tuesday afternoon from the cab of his truck.

The photo appears to show the faint outline of a figure hovering over the accident scene. The man involved in the motorcycle crash later died at the hospital.

He posted the pic on Facebook a few minutes later, and many commenters said the photo captures the dead man’s spirit leaving his body.

Vazquez told CNN affiliate WLEX the photo wasn’t altered.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/14/us/spirit-leaving-body-photo-trnd/index.html?campaign_id=A100&campaign_type=Email

Man makes video game to help grieve child’s death

On By A.P.In death, video gameLeave a comment

by Sara Ashley O’Brien

When his one-year-old son was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, Ryan Green turned to videogames. It was in part an escape, but also a way to share the the ups and downs of his family’s experiences.
In January 2016 — two years after four-year-old Joel passed away — ‘That Dragon, Cancer’ was released.

The two-hour game is less choose-your-own adventure and more about immersive experience — putting the player right in the center of the Green family’s battle for Joel’s life. You see the diagnosis, the tears, the desperate prayers — but you also hear Joel’s laughter, lots of it.

Green said that people have embraced it, despite the fact that it’s not the type of game you’d sit down to play over and over again.

“It was incredible, the groundswell of interest,” said Green, onstage at the Wired Business Conference in New York City on Thursday. “We were able to share our story and that gave other people permission to share theirs. That grief process — that’s all I could hope for.”

Green said the game was a team effort. There were four full-time people working on it, and his wife Amy wrote the script.

Green used the metaphor of a boat to describe players’ engagement with the game.

“If you’re in a boat, you’re going where it’s going. You can be freaked out and flail and try to drive it limited way,” he said. “[But] we invite you in as a friend. You go downstream with us. It’s about the discovery of the story … It’s about grace in the midst of having no choice.”

The game, which costs $14.99, was a memorial to Joel — but has also made him live on through the experiences of stranger.

Green said people write him and say, “‘The thing that I loved most was making Joel laugh.’ They wanted to comfort him as if he was present. I hope it adds to their life experience — to have loved Joel.”

But Green doesn’t return to the game himself.

“That work is done,” he said. “It’s been all consuming: losing Joel, grieving Joel — it needs to be done.”

As for what’s next? Green — who has four children — said his next project will be in the virtual reality space, although he won’t disclose details. His studio, Numinous Games, also plans to bring ‘That Dragon, Cancer’ to mobile devices, in order to share Joel’s story with even more people. Right now, it’s just available on Macs and PCs.

“We hope to continue to tell meaningful stories and show people that life is complex,” he said onstage. “It’s not all tears but it’s also laughter.”

http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/16/technology/that-dragon-cancer-ryan-green/index.html

German man writes his own bitter obituary

On By A.P.In deathLeave a comment

A German man has taken his grudges to the grave by telling his family they are banned from his funeral.

In a self-penned obituary in the Trierischer Volksfreund, a newspaper in Western Germany, Hubert Martini, 64, went to great lengths to let those he left behind what he thought of them.

In the death notice, he admits hurting people, but said it was a good thing and that he was an atheist until the end and therefore any religious symbolism was banned at his committal.

Roughly translated, Martini wrote: ‘I sign up herewith from life. I had a good life, but it was overshadowed by many diseases. The last one was unfortunately invincible. One last word – I was a convinced atheist, and there I stayed, so at the farewell ceremony there will be no mourning, no crosses and no other overt or covert religious symbols. As for flowers, if at all, please just bring yellow and orange lilies – without a strong odour. Forbid the other five children of my parents and their partners and offspring. I am to take part in this celebration. You are all discarded.’

It is unclear what made Martini want to have the last word, but the 64-year-old notes that in life ‘I have hurt some people – and that’s good.’

Local undertaker Martina Schmidt called the obituary ‘out of order – He wanted to settle scores and now the relatives have to live with that,’ she said.

HUBERT MARTINI’S OBITUARY, ROUGHLY TRANSLATED, IN FULL
I sign up herewith from life.
I had a good life, but it was overshadowed by many diseases. The last one was unfortunately invincible.
I’ve known and loved a wonderful woman, learned I have a good son that I fathered with her which gave me two great grandchildren..
Well, despite everything, a good life.
I would like to thank the few friends who were always on my path..
You will now assist also Hiltrud and Dirk and a special thanks so to Birgit and Hans and Eva.
Thanks also to my Turkish friend Mustafa – the insight into his family culture were not always painless for me.
My parts probably always remained alien.
But he was honest with me.
And openness and honesty have always been very important to me .
One last word – I was a convinced atheist, and there I stayed, so at the farewell ceremony on Saturday, July 2, 2016 in Ruheforst at 11am, there will be no mourning, no crosses and no other overt or covert religious symbols.
As for flowers, if at all, please just bring yellow and orange lilies – without a strong odour.
Forbid the other five children of my parents and their partners and offspring.
I am to take part in this celebration. You are all discarded.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3670246/German-grandfather-bans-family-funeral-self-pens-bizarre-obituary.html#ixzz4DGadQqbe
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Gravediggers compete in race

On By A.P.In deathLeave a comment

Digging their way to the top, 18 two-man teams of Hungarian gravediggers displayed their skills Friday for a place in a regional championship to be held in Slovakia later this year.

Participants in the contest held in plot 37A of the public cemetery of the eastern Hungarian city of Debrecen were being judged on their speed but also getting points for style — the look of the finished grave mounds.

Janos Jonas, 63, who teamed with his son, Csaba, saw the competition run by the Hungarian Association of Cemetery Maintainers and Operators as a sort of last hurrah as he was just a few weeks from retirement.

“We didn’t have to prepare in any special way because we do this every day,” said Jonas, from the nearby village of Hosszupalyi. “This is good earth, quite soft and humid, just right for the event.”

Organizer Iren Kari said they hoped the race would help increase respect and recognition for the gravediggers’ profession and attract more people to the job, which is under threat, for example by the increasing popularity of cremations.

“These men see death every day. Sometimes people joke about them while they work, but gravediggers are human, too,” said Kari, who is advocating for gravediggers to get access to psychological support to better handle the strains of the job. “We are having difficulties finding replacements for our retiring employees. Young people today don’t like to dig and work.”

All contestants had shovels, rakes, axes and pickaxes to dig graves 0.8 meters (2 feet 7 inches) wide, 2 meters (6 feet 6 inches) long and 1.6 meters (5 feet 3 inches) deep, but no two teams seemed to use the same technique.

Some preferred to dig simultaneously, while others had one man digging while the other formed the dirt into neat piles around the gravesite. For safety reasons, like the collapse of a grave wall, only one member of each team was allowed to work in the grave after reaching a depth of 1 meter (3 feet 3 inches).

After every team finished digging — the fastest time was just over 34 minutes — there was a short rest and then the dirt was shoveled back into the graves, each topped with a burial mound about the size of a large casket.

“We take special pride in the burial mounds, on which we place the flowers and wreaths at the end of the funeral,” Jonas said, relating how while drinking on the job was strictly forbidden, relatives often gave gravediggers a bottle of palinka, a traditional Hungarian fruit brandy, as a gratuity.

Some teams wore white shirts, ties and elegant vests, while others were in t-shirts or overalls. One pair wore plastic coveralls, but everyone was sweating by the end of the race on a warm spring day.

“The hardest part of the job is to deal with the mourners,” said Debrecen gravedigger Laszlo Toth. “But it’s a good job, with good colleagues and a good environment.”

Toth, who won the event with teammate Janos Racz, will compete in a regional race planned to be held in November in Trencin, Slovakia.

http://bigstory.ap.org/1cc6ab423af94e74a246f93774ba3522