Book Review: Ambiguous Loss. Learning to Live With Unresolved Grief.

Authors

Virginia B. Schelbert

Keywords

New Glarus, Swiss history, Wisconsin history, Swiss colony, Psychology

Abstract

The author, Professor of Family Social Services at the University of Minnesota, is the daughter of the late Paul and of Verena Magdalena Grossenbacher, born Elmer. Her father was a native of Burgdorf, Canton Bern, and had been a main promoter of New Glarus' Swiss American institutions. 3 Thus Dr. Boss begins her book with a personal narrative which describes growing up with the effects of the immigrant experience on family members. Her people had left their homeland Switzerland and many beloved relatives in the early 1900' s for life in the American Midwest, only to encounter yearning, homesickness, and melancholy. The meaning of family for her differed from that of her parents and grandparents which included members whom they sadly would not see again, but who were unknown to her. This sparked the author's curiosity and later her professional interest in the phenomenon of frozen grief or ambiguous loss when the physical is not congruent with the psychological family, leading to a "bittersweet legacy" of simultaneous absence and presence.

Recommended Citation

Schelbert, Virginia B. (2001) "Book Review: Ambiguous Loss. Learning to Live With Unresolved Grief.," Swiss American Historical Society Review: Vol. 37: No. 1, Article 6.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_review/vol37/iss1/6