They didn’t know each other, but they all shared a love of Harry Potter.
“Harry Potter” has been delighting fans since J.K. Rowling launched her wildly successful book series in 1998. With movie adaptations, theme parks, and more, Harry Potter and his wizarding world have become a mainstay of modern culture — so much so that countless obituaries include the fact that the deceased was a Harry Potter fan. Here are a few of those Harry Potter devotees.
The degree of Rachel A. Shockley’s love of Harry Potter books and films was highlighted in her obituary in The Daily Times.
Shockley, a resident of Salisbury, Maryland, who died at age 20, “attended a Harry Potter Symposium in Canada, wrote fan fiction and was looking forward to attending the premier of the final movie with her friends.”
In a sense, Shockley took up the Potter mantle in her own life, facing life’s challenges with courage and determination. She wrote on Facebook a few months before her death:
“A 19 year old with cancer for the second time, on a mission to make a difference. Somehow.”
Said her family in the obituary, “Rachel didn’t realize how many lives she had touched and inspired with her love, compassion, courage and wisdom.”
Harry Potter fan Roderick “Rod” Johnson of Gary, Indiana, was a member of Service Employees International Union Local 73. Johnson served the citizens of Gary as an employee of the city, as well as through his work with mental health organizations and legal aid.
In his obituary, Johnson’s family wrote that he was “a hard worker, an avid reader, fisherman, and lover of movies, especially the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings series.”
Thomas D. Loden was a Pacific Bell retiree and Air Force veteran who doted on his nieces. According to his obituary in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Loden “looked forward each year to Thanksgiving visits with his family to discuss the latest Harry Potter book” and take his nieces to see the latest Harry Potter movie.
This post was contributed by Alana Baranick, a freelance obituary writer. She was the director of the Society of Professional Obituary Writers and chief author of Life on the Death Beat: A Handbook for Obituary Writers before she passed away in 2015.
