How a small community can cope with great loss

How a small community can cope with great loss
By Lily G. Casura
STAFF WRITER
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Here in St. Helena, the community is reeling from the recent tragedy in which 14 extended family members of the Jacobson family, including many small children, died. Dr. Erin Jacobson and his wife, Amy, were well-loved by their friends, family members and colleagues. Their children, Taylor, Ava and Jude, were also beloved locally.

And the question remains, how does a small-town community cope with such a great loss? And what local and national resources are available to them?

From the St. Helena Cooperative Nursery School, where parents gathered last week to grieve in tandem; to the St. Helena Hospital, where a memorial to the Jacobson family is set up in the lobby, and added to daily; to informal gatherings of friends and family at Taylor’s Refresher, or Miner Family Vineyards; to Saturday’s memorial service for the family; the Napa Valley reverberates with echoes of pain and suffering and compassion. And fortunately, also, with help for the grieving.
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How a small community can cope with great loss