Losing someone is heavy. It's a weight that doesn't just sit on your chest; it settles into the very floorboards of a home. In small towns like Tabor City, North Carolina, that weight is often shared by the whole community. When you start looking for inman ward funeral home obituaries, you aren't just looking for a date of birth or a list of surviving cousins. You’re usually looking for a connection to a life that meant something to the fabric of Columbus County.
Honestly, the way we handle death in the South is different. It’s personal. Inman-Ward Funeral Home has been sitting on East 5th Street for decades, acting as a sort of quiet gatekeeper for the town’s stories. When a name appears in their records, it isn't just data. It’s a legacy.
How to Actually Find Inman Ward Funeral Home Obituaries Today
You’d think everything is online now, right? Mostly, it is. But searching for a specific obituary from a few years ago versus one from last week requires a different approach. The digital footprint of a small-town funeral home is sometimes a bit fragmented.
If you need a recent record—say, within the last five to ten years—the most direct route is the official Inman-Ward Funeral Home website. They maintain a digital wall of remembrance. It’s pretty straightforward. You land on the homepage, click the "Obituaries" tab, and you can scroll through the faces of neighbors and friends.
But here is the thing: search engines can be finicky. Sometimes, typing the name into Google brings up third-party sites like Legacy.com or Tribute Archive before the actual funeral home site. Those sites are fine, but they often pull information from the original source. If you want the most "official" version, including the specific details about where the visitation is happening or where to send flowers (often to local spots like Tabor City Florist), the funeral home’s own site is the gold standard.
The Paper Trail: Digging Deeper
What if the person passed away in the 1980s? Or the 60s?
🔗 Read more: Curtain Bangs on Fine Hair: Why Yours Probably Look Flat and How to Fix It
That is where things get tricky. Digital archives for rural North Carolina newspapers aren't always complete. The Tabor City Tribune has been the heartbeat of the area for a long time. If you can’t find a digital record on the Inman-Ward site, your next best bet is the Columbus County Public Library system. They keep microfilm. It sounds old-school because it is, but for genealogy buffs or those settling an estate from decades ago, it’s the only way to find the original printed notice.
Why These Records are the DNA of Columbus County
It might sound strange to call a death notice "DNA," but think about it. If you look at inman ward funeral home obituaries from the mid-20th century, you see the shift in the town’s economy. You see the mentions of tobacco farming families. You see the veterans of the Korean War and Vietnam.
Obituaries are often the only written record that exists for "ordinary" people who did extraordinary things for their families.
I’ve spent hours looking through these kinds of records for research projects. You start to notice patterns. You see how certain family names—Spivey, Watts, Prince, Soles—weave in and out of the narrative of Tabor City. Inman-Ward has handled the arrangements for generations of these families. That kind of institutional memory is rare these days when big corporate chains are buying up local mortuaries. Inman-Ward has stayed local. That matters.
Accuracy Matters in These Records
Sometimes people find errors. It happens. A middle initial is wrong, or a great-grandchild’s name is left out. If you are looking at a recent obituary on their site and notice a mistake, the staff there is generally very responsive. They understand that this is the final "document of record" for a human being.
💡 You might also like: Bates Nut Farm Woods Valley Road Valley Center CA: Why Everyone Still Goes After 100 Years
Correcting a digital obituary is easy. Correcting the one that was printed in the Sunday paper? Not so much. That’s why the digital archive at the funeral home has become the primary source for modern genealogy.
Practical Steps for Families and Genealogists
If you are currently tasked with writing an obituary to be posted with Inman-Ward, or if you are searching for an ancestor, here is the reality of how to handle it.
- For the writers: Keep it real. Don’t feel like you have to use "funeral-speak." If the person loved fishing at Lake Tabor more than anything else, put that in there. People search for these records to remember the personality, not just the stats.
- For the searchers: Use specific date ranges. If "John Smith" is too common, add "Tabor City" or "Green Sea" to your search query. Many people who lived across the state line in South Carolina still used Inman-Ward because of its reputation.
- For the historians: Don't rely solely on the website. If a record seems missing, call the funeral home. They have physical ledgers that predate the internet. While they are busy running a business and helping grieving families, they are usually respectful of legitimate historical inquiries.
The Role of Social Media
Lately, Facebook has become the "new" obituary page. Inman-Ward often posts service announcements on their social media channels. It’s faster than the website sometimes. If you’re looking for immediate information about a service time or a live-streamed funeral, check their Facebook page first. It has become the town square for Tabor City.
Understanding the Costs and Logistics
Searching for an obituary is free, but sometimes people end up on these "pay-to-play" genealogy sites. Be careful. You shouldn't have to pay $20 just to read a 300-word write-up about your uncle.
The information belongs to the community.
📖 Related: Why T. Pepin’s Hospitality Centre Still Dominates the Tampa Event Scene
When you find the record, save it. Take a screenshot or print it to a PDF. Digital archives can change, websites can get redesigned, and sometimes old data gets lost in a migration. If you find a record of a family member, keep a local copy for your own records.
Beyond the Text
An obituary is a starting point. Often, the inman ward funeral home obituaries will link to a "Tribute Wall." This is where the real gold is. You’ll find photos people uploaded from their private collections—pics of the deceased at a 1974 backyard BBQ or a grainy shot of them in their high school football jersey.
Those photos aren't in the newspaper. They are in the digital archive.
Actionable Steps for Locating Specific Records
If you’re stuck and can't find the specific obituary you need, follow this sequence:
- Check the Inman-Ward official site search bar. Use only the last name first to see if the spelling was recorded differently.
- Search the "Tribute Archive" or "Legacy" platforms. These often mirror funeral home data and might have cached a version if the main site is down.
- Visit the Tabor City Library. Ask for the "Tabor City Tribune" archives. If you have a death date from a death certificate, you can find the corresponding paper within minutes.
- Contact the North Carolina State Archives. If you are looking for someone from the early 1900s, the funeral home might not have those records digitized, but the state will have the death certificates which often list the informant and the burial location.
Obituaries serve a dual purpose: they inform the living of a loss, and they preserve the dead for the future. In a place like Tabor City, where history is lived in the present, those records are vital. Whether you are grieving or researching, these archives are a bridge to the past that shouldn't be overlooked.
Make sure to cross-reference any dates you find with official death certificates if you are doing legal work or serious genealogy. Obituaries are written by grieving humans, and humans occasionally get dates or spellings wrong in the heat of the moment. Always verify the "anchor" facts before adding them to your family tree.