[CarolinaCutie]

It really depends on the family and WHERE you're from. I am from a small town in North Carolina. We have ROOM in our obituary section for long memorials because there's not much other news! Plus, people in the town are more likely to know this person and be interested in their life's story. I know exactly what type of obituary you mean, and I would say that it is NOT standard. The family chooses to pay a larger amount of money to the newspaper to print the more in-depth memorial. But perhaps it occurs here more often than there? I would not be surprised if it was also common throughout smaller towns in the Midwest as well. I don't think it's a Southern thing exclusively, but I'm not sure.