The relationships between death, loss, burial and grief, and our understanding of the private and public dimensions of these are complicated. It assumed that grief slowly shifted from public to private spheres in modern times. In the 19th and 20th centuries, funerals in the Netherlands became more and more intimate events for families and close friends. But some funerals have always been public events. During the 19th century, the upper-class families informed their loved ones and others with a private letter about the death of a family member. In the first decades of the 20th century it became common to publish obituaries in newspapers participating in the public grief of the loss of an public figure.