Westward. Encounters with Swiss American Women
Thanks also to Doris Stump of the eFeF-Verlag, the publisher of the German edition, to the Swiss American Historical Society, especially its president Dr. Heinz B. Bachmann and to Gerhard Kälin and Katja Schönbächler of Franz Kälin Druckerei AG of Einsiedeln. They were all most helpful in guiding the project to what it is now.
My Swiss American friends, it has been a great honor to share in telling your stories!
Susann Bosshard-Kälin
March, 2010, Egg near Einsiedeln
“Our family is like mixed greens of different ethnic groups, says my German friend. My husband David is from Sierra Leone, I am from Switzerland, and my son is married to a Chinese woman. When David and I take our grandchildren with their almond eyes for a walk in Sag Harbor, the whole world meets.” Ellen Carney laughs and uses a clasp to put up her long white hair. She wears a light airy summer dress, which she made herself as she has done with her entire wardrobe for decades.
For over twenty years the family therapist Ellen Carney-Ernst has been living with her second husband David, a former UN official, in Sag Harbor, at the eastern end of Long Island. In the 19th century whalers lived on this island near Manhattan, later painters discovered the region, and today stars and starlets from movies and TV – such as Steven Spielberg or Renée Zellweger – have their summer residences here.