How to Write a Condolence Note

The New York Public Library is presenting our beloved Amy Cunningham to discuss how to write a condolence note.

Join funeral director and Green-Wood Cemetery educator, Amy Cunningham, for this workshop on how to write a condolence letter.

With death ever-present, condolence letters were mainstays of 19th-century life, missives of comfort written straight from the heart. Amy and participants will read copies of letters by Charles Dickens, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln, and Queen Victoria herself with comparisons to modern letter writing. Participants will then review the principles of a good condolence letter. Amy Cunningham is a Brooklyn funeral director who helps families with green burials, cremation services in Green-Wood Cemetery crematory chapels, home vigils, and other sorts of memorials.