When Frances Irene Finley Williams took her last breath on Nov. 21, her family wanted it known that, while President Donald Trump didn't actually kill her, he certainly accelerated her demise.

An 87-year-old spitfire of a lady who had a voracious appetite for news and strong opinions about the direction of the country, she told her daughter about six months before her death, "If I die soon, all this Trump stuff has had an effect."

So when her heart and her lungs gave out the day before Thanksgiving, her daughter, Cathy Duff, knew what she had to do.

Right there in her obituary, after listing the husband, two children, five grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, and after her two sisters, all of whom survived her …

After the fact that she was a member of the Keystone Sunday School Class at St. Matthews United Methodist Church, that she loved dancing, fashion, babies, flowers, birds, dogs, cats, Elvis Presley and Willie Nelson ...

After it was noted that she didn't suffer fools gladly, cheered for the University of Louisville, liked betting on horses, was a passionate Democrat, and all the other type of facts that pepper obituaries daily …

And just before the time and date of the visitation to be held near the end of December and the fact that if you were planning to wear blue jeans, shorts, flip-flops or tennis shoes to the service, Frances Irene Finley Williams didn't want you to show up at all, Duff wrote it: "Her passing was hastened by her continued frustration with the Trump administration."

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Art Williams said his mother would have appreciated the line.

She was the type who liked to put politicians' yard signs in her front yard just to rile her eastern Jefferson County neighbors, whom she assumed were arch-conservatives.

The Cremation Society of Kentucky, which was handling her arrangements, submitted it to The Courier-Journal for publication on three days, along with a check for $1,684.44. It was accepted and everything was good to go.

Until it wasn't.

Art Williams had held this in for a couple of weeks, but on Jan. 4 he couldn’t stand it anymore. A longtime subscriber to the newspaper, the son of the woman who spoke her mind and didn't take guff from anyone, he wrote about it on Facebook.

"I was — and still am, dumbfounded, surprised — but most of all disappointed and aghast," he wrote on Facebook.

A couple of days before the obituary was to appear in the print edition of The Courier-Journal, he learned it had been rejected. He was told it could run, however, if the family removed the line about Trump.

Having to remove the 'line'

An email from a Gannett office in Wisconsin that handles obituaries said, "we are not able to publish the obituary as is, due to the negative content within the obituary text."

The family dutifully struck the sentence about Trump from the obit. Family members and friends attended the visitation and memorial service — none of them wearing blue jeans, shorts, flip-flops or tennis shoes.

But it still bothered Williams.

Williams, the former head of Louisville's Air Pollution Control District, noted that The Courier-Journal exists "by reason of freedom of speech."

"My mom would have been offended — and I hope you are too," he wrote.

People were. Nearly 80 people commented on his post. More than 100 replied with emojis.

Worries of blistering obituaries

Newspapers around the country have been looking more closely at obituaries since the summer, when the children of 80-year-old Kathleen Dehmlow ran a blistering obituary announcing her death in the Redwood Falls Gazette in Minnesota, a newspaper owned by Gatehouse Media.

In the short obituary, Dehmlow's children wrote that their mother had an affair with her husband's brother, became pregnant and ran off to California, leaving her children to be raised by her mother.

"She passed away on May 31, 2018, in Springfield and will now face judgement. She will not be missed by Gina and Jay (her children), and they understand that this world is a better place without her," the obituary said.

The obituary caused an uproar and prompted another family member to tell the Minneapolis Star Tribune that while true, the obituary had left out a lot of important information that could have put Dehmlow's life into perspective.

"This is going to hurt a lot of people," he told the Star Tribune.

The online obituary was taken down and Legacy.com, which publishes obits online for the Redwood Falls Gazette and many other newspapers, including those owned by Gannett, announced it was reviewing its standards and would take a more active role in vetting obituaries it posts.

Gannett's policy on 'negative content'

Gannett also has a policy banning "negative content" in obituaries, although company officials wouldn't say how long that policy has been in effect.

Laurie Bolle, the director of sales for Gannett's West Group, based in Green Bay, Wisconsin, said the decision to refuse the obituary was a mistake. And she said the company does not limit what is said in obituaries "based on political views."

Williams said when he posted his Facebook rant, he really wasn't looking for anything — just to get it off his chest. Now, he said, an apology would be nice. A refund for his 92-year-old father would be even better.

"Mrs. Williams' obituary should have published as it was presented to our obits team and as requested by the family," said Richard Green, editor of The Courier-Journal.

"In this political climate we now find ourselves, partisanship should have no role in deciding what gets included in an obituary that captures a loved one's life — especially one as amazing as what Mrs. Williams led. I'm certain she is missed greatly by those who loved her. We send the family our deepest condolences and apologies."

Politics make their way to obituaries

It shouldn't surprise anyone that politics are making their way into obituaries these days.

For many people, what's going on in Washington is all-consuming — on both the right and the left. When Elaine Fydrych died in Runnemede, New Jersey, in 2015, her obituary asked, "In lieu of flowers, please do not vote for Hillary Clinton."

In 2008, The Wall Street Journal reported that at least a dozen people used their obituaries to ask people to support Barack Obama.

And when a Virginia woman died in May of 2016, her obit in the Richmond Times-Dispatch said, "Faced with the prospect of voting for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, Mary Anne Noland chose, instead, to pass into the eternal love of God."

As we head into the 2020 election season, this isn't going to get any better. We might as well get used to it.

Even if people can't vote from the grave, some of them are going to want to speak from it. And people should be able to say what they want about politics in obituaries they pay for, no matter who they support or oppose.

The family of Frances Irene Finley Williams thinks you should know she thought Trump was "crass, vulgar, racist, sexist, dishonest, corrupt and unintelligent."

And you should.

Joseph Gerth is the metro columnist for The (Louisville) Courier-Journal, where this column first appeared. You can follow him on Twitter: @Joe_Gerth.