Inquirer obituary writer Gayle Ronan Sims dies

Gayle Ronan Sims, 61, of Merion, who lyrically described the lives of the famous, the infamous and the ordinary as an Inquirer obituary writer, died April 16 of multiple organ failure following a double lung transplant.

This weekend, at its convention in Charlotte, N.C., the Society of Professional Obituary Writers (SPOW) plans to announce the creation of a special award named for Ms. Sims, to be given only occasionally to writers of the highest dedication and distinction.

"She set the standard," said Alana Baranick, director of SPOW, "and that's what the award is about."

Readers of The Inquirer know the care Ms. Sims devoted to her stories.

"Gayle had an ineradicable passion for her work, and a compassion for the people she wrote about and their families," said William K. Marimow, editor of The Inquirer. "Gayle's dedication was absolute and second to none, and we are really going to miss her."

Marimow recalled how, at home on the weekends, he would get e-mails and sometimes even phone calls from Ms. Sims, who would press for greater length or better play for a particular obituary.

She was an "ardent fighter," not just in the newsroom but in life, Marimow said. Ms. Sims knew the transplant carried serious risk - able to revive her health or snuff it out - and approached the operation with courage, he said.

To her colleagues, Ms. Sims was loving, complicated, pushy, surprising, helpful, and exasperating. She was a stalwart friend and a tenacious advocate, an obituary writer who wanted neither a funeral nor an obituary for herself. News of her death appears here only because her family knew readers would wonder why her byline had disappeared.

Ms. Sims' interests extended beyond work. She was enormously proud of her children, daughter Jamie, 32, and son Taylor, 25.

She was a gourmet cook who loved reading and books, a one-woman lending library. "She loved finding the perfect book for you," said Inquirer reporter Jennifer Lin, who received Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.

Ms. Sims captured revealing moments on film in the same way her words captured people in print. On Christmas, her daughter said, Ms. Sims insisted on being first downstairs, camera in hand. The result is a chronological family volume of her children's joy.

"You didn't see my mom coming," said Jamie Sims, of Wayne. "She had this sweet, tiny little voice, this little blonde. She could ask tough questions, and she was a fierce negotiator, because it was not what you expected. She challenged people's expectations."

Taylor Sims, of Merion, said his mother's expertise in writing pushed him to develop his own skills. "She had a curious personality, and a drive to know, 'Why?,' " he said. "Her ability to get people to open up, I've taken a lot from her in that regard."

It was through Taylor that Ms. Sims became friendly with Teresa Heinz Kerry, the widow of the late U.S. Sen. John Heinz and wife of U.S. Sen. John Kerry. The women were linked by a tragedy. In 1991, John Heinz's plane collided with a helicopter over Merion Elementary School, killing six people on the two aircraft, including the senator, and two children on the ground.

Taylor was a student there but had lingered inside that day, sparing him from danger. Ms. Sims rushed from the newsroom to embrace her son, the school carpet around them still burning.

Ms. Sims was born in St. Louis in 1947, the third of four children. Her father, a tool-and-die worker, would say that if he ever came into money, he would send his son to college to become an electrical engineer.

Ms. Sims graduated from high school as class valedictorian - and decided she would go to college herself, paying her way through the University of Missouri. After three years of study to be an electrical engineer, she changed her major to journalism.

After graduation, she worked for the Missouri governor's office and then for the Denver Post. In 1987 she came to The Inquirer as an assistant news editor. She moved on to be a page designer, graphics coordinator, video editor, and Newsmakers writer before being assigned to obituaries in 2003.

Many reporters shy away from the obituary beat, seeing it as the task of a beginner, a job that promises dull repetition. And it can be that. Or it can be what Ms. Sims made it: a place to tell the stories of the departed in all their color and complexity, to mourn a passing while celebrating a life.

Ms. Sims started working from home in 2007, tethered to an oxygen tank, in pain with every breath but determined to keep writing. City editor Julie Busby recalled Ms. Sims' satisfaction at having completed an advance obituary on longtime Tonight Show sidekick Ed McMahon, documenting how the performer so associated with Hollywood began his TV career in Philadelphia.

In the last year alone, she wrote about a tennis coach, a neurologist and a homicide detective, about people whose interests ranged from guitar to gardening. Her last obituary was the story of an all-American lacrosse player who grew up to help run a five-generation family firm.

"She loved average Joes," her daughter said. "The guy who took tickets at the SEPTA station, the woman at the soup kitchen."

A friend, Washington Post obituary writer Adam Bernstein, said Ms. Sims was unusually patient in talking to grieving family members, knowing that for them no story was more important.

"Gayle is the exemplar of the community-minded journalist who sees the obit craft as a way of celebrating a life," Bernstein said.

She let the layers of her subjects' lives unfold.

"Gayle really cared about people," said a friend, Inquirer reporter Vernon Clark. "I sat here and listened to her interview many, many people. . . . She conveyed sympathy."

Ms. Sims, who never smoked, suffered from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a chronic and progressive lung disease. She survived the transplant at Temple University Hospital, her new lungs functioning, but other organs failed.

In addition to her children, she is survived by her former husband, James.

Memorial donations may be made to the Gift of Life donor program, 401 N. Third St., Philadelphia 19123.