Peter Kaplan, 59, 'chronicled every move and shake' in Manhattan

Though he went on to help carry The Observer across the digital threshold, overseeing the creation of its website, Mr. Kaplan was regarded by those who knew him as a throwback to an earlier age — to the New York of the Stork Club, the Automat and the Algonquin. He revered the stuff of that era, from classic black-and-white films that portrayed the city at its noirish finest (he knew the credits of nearly all of them by heart) to newspapers as they were originally conceived: damp, sweet-smelling and black and white, or, in his case, black and pink.

Elizabeth Ghaffari, busted at the seams of her small-town Western life

As Betty Lindholm, she grew up in Logan, Utah with her older sister, Ellen. From a young age, Betty had an individualistic spirit, refined taste, and a thirst for travel and experience that busted at the seams of her small-town Western life. She began subscribing to the New Yorker magazine as a teenager and delighted in listening to New York Philharmonic broadcasts on the family radio. She had a low tolerance for prejudice of any kind, and was often able to defuse such situations through logic, persuasion, or humor.

Jane Catherine Lotter, 60, got to write her own obit

I was given the gift of life, and now I have to give it back. This is hard. But I was a lucky woman, who led a lucky existence, and for this I am grateful. I first got sick in January 2010. When the cancer recurred last year and was terminal, I decided to be joyful about having had a full life, rather than sad about having to die. Amazingly, this outlook worked for me. (Well, you know, most of the time.) Meditation and the study of Buddhist philosophy also helped me accept what I could not change. At any rate, I am at peace. And on that upbeat note, I take my mortal leave of this rollicking, revolving world-this sun, that moon, that walk around Green Lake, that stroll through the Pike Place Market, the memory of a child's hand in mine.