Wrong Maine woman declared dead in obit Similar names result in funeral home mix-up

BANGOR – Anne E. Hathaway was somewhat shocked Friday when a friend called to see if she was still alive.

The Orono resident’s obituary had appeared in Friday’s Bangor Daily News. The information in the short obituary and the list of death notices was correct, except for the part about her being dead.

The deceased was actually Ann Hathaway of Bangor.

Both women had made advance funeral arrangements at the same funeral home. When pulling the file for the deceased Ann Hathaway, the funeral home employee didn’t realize there were two women with very similar names and grabbed the wrong one.

“A friend called me early this morning because somebody had called her and said, ‘Weren’t you with Anne yesterday? Well, she’s gone,” Hathaway said Friday afternoon.

At 92, Hathaway admits she’s no spring chicken but said that she’s not dead yet.

“I just laughed,” Hathaway said. “I went to the pearly gates and opened the door and they didn’t have any strawberry shortcake and they didn’t like the way my hair looked.”

She joked that she was looking better after having her hair styled Friday.

“I look better than I did when they printed the obituary,” Hathaway said. “It’s okay and I’m still here.”

The funeral home called her and apologized, and Hathaway was able to straighten the situation out with a phone call and letter to the editor to the Bangor Daily News.

“I’m a good sport, and that’s the story of my day,” she said.

The BDN verifies deaths with a funeral home, hospital or mortuary before publishing any obituary provided by a family member. The paper does not verify deaths when obituaries are provided by funeral homes with which the paper regularly works.

A funeral home employee normally meets with the family of the deceased to write or publish an obituary, and at that point the error of pulling the wrong file would have been discovered. In this instance, the deceased Ann Hathaway didn’t have any family, and her guardian was unable to meet with the funeral home Thursday before the home placed a notice stating that a full obituary would be published at a later date.

“It’s just a matter of us checking the vitals a little more carefully,” a funeral home employee said Friday.

Aimee Dolloff may be reached

at adolloff@bangordailynews.net or 990-8130.