Since 2014, Seven Days has ended each year by recounting the lives of a handful of Vermonters who died in the previous 12 months. We call these profiles “Life Stories.” You’d think that after a decade of doing them, they’d get easier. But the opposite is true.
When deputy publisher Cathy Resmer conceived this project, her idea was to pay tribute to Vermonters of a wide range of backgrounds, ages, locations and renown. Some of the folks we’ve profiled have been household names, but we generally try to avoid people whose deaths made major headlines.
Instead, we seek to tell smaller stories that move us in one way or another. In the past 10 years, we’ve written about famous poets as well as musicians who rarely played outside their bedrooms; rabble-rousing counterculture heroes as well as straight-laced businesspeople; and centenarians with rich, full lives as well as children lost far too soon.
In producing these profiles for so long, we’ve learned a few things. One is that “Life Stories” are challenging and can intimidate even experienced journalists. Another is that they’re deeply rewarding to write — and read. And, yeah, they’re also often sad.
Through the years, one undeniable truth has emerged over and over: Everyone has a compelling story to be told. Which also means that choosing whom to write about presents quite a conundrum.
To curate “Life Stories,” I track obituaries throughout the year, flagging those I think might make for good profiles. Seven Days editors and reporters also send me suggestions when someone dies on their respective beats. It amounts to hundreds of potential candidates. Most years we choose about eight.
If you pressed me, I couldn’t tell you precisely why one person makes the cut and another doesn’t. Sometimes you know the moment you read an obit. Others might require a second or third look. And occasionally it’s as simple and unscientific as a gut feeling.
I can tell you that I feel a tinge of remorse every time I narrow the field, like I’m passing some strange sort of final judgment on people whom I never met and never will. It would actually be easier if we limited our scope to notable or famous figures — “Vermont famous,” at least. But that would truly miss the point.
In the end, our hope is that the people you’ll read about in Life Stories will inspire and move you. Not because they were necessarily the best at what they did or the most successful or overcame great odds. But because through the simple act of living, they charted out stories worth telling, as each of us do.
Thanks, as always, to the families and friends of the deceased for sharing those stories with us.
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This article appears in Dec 25, 2024 – Jan 7, 2025.
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