John Pillsbury

Title: Obituary Notice
Type: Newspaper
Date: October 24, 1901
Source: St. Paul Weekly Dispatch

Description: Obituary of John S. Pillsbury, printed in the St. Paul Weekly Dispatch on October 24, 1901.
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Activities:

1. What can an obituary tell us about a person's life that other sources might not tell us?
   
   
   
   
   Answer: An obituary usually describes a person's life from beginning to end, and is a good source for general information about what a person did. It can give us some hints about other sources to look for to learn more about the person.
2. Although Pillsbury did many things in his life, this obituary mentions one period of his life as the most interesting. Which period does the article mention?
   
   
   
   
   Answer: The article suggests that his greatest contribution to Minnesota was his work with the University of Minnesota. He helped pull the university through some very difficult financial times and gave almost half a million dollars to the school.
3. Would you be able to get this amount of information from any person's obituary notice?
   
   
   
   
   Answer: No. Most people have much briefer notices that give basic facts about the death, the burial, and the names of family. For people as well known as Pillsbury, however, longer obituaries are written, making them good places to turn for information.
4. What might make an obituary an unreliable place to find information?
   
   
   
   
   Answer: Because obituaries are written at the time of someone's death, information about the person's life might be less accurate since those events happened much earlier. The article might also not be as thorough about difficult issues in order to be sensitive to the death.