platform389
06-07-08, 17:57
This will get to ya.http://smilies.vidahost.com/contrib/aahmed/sad.gif Be sure and click through the photo slide show at the link below.
http://www.twincities.com/ci_9459445?source=most_emailed
Two-year-old storm victim Nathaniel Prindle is laid to rest Monday.
Nathaniel Prindle would have loved seeing — and hearing — the choo-choo train at his funeral.
The 2-year-old, who died during the May 25 tornado in Hugo, was buried Monday in Washington County, just east of his hometown in a country graveyard his family chose because freight trains regularly chug past.
Canadian Pacific officials arranged to have two locomotives and a caboose waiting on the tracks south of the Withrow Cemetery in May Township.
When the graveside service concluded late Monday afternoon and dozens of orange and white helium balloons had been released, the bright-red train and brown caboose slowly rumbled past Nathaniel's grave.
The engineer gave Nathaniel a long train-whistle salute as the train headed east, out of sight.
It was a fitting farewell to the boy who loved choo-choo trains.
Nate, who would have turned 2 1/2 on June 9, drowned when the tornado lifted him and dropped him into a nearby pond. His parents, Gerard "Jerry" and Christina Prindle, and 4-year-old sister, Annika, were trapped in the rubble of their home.
Annika remained in critical condition Monday at Gillette Children's Specialty Healthcare in St. Paul.
Jerry Prindle, who had surgery last week at Regions Hospital in St. Paul to repair a broken bone near his hip, was carried to his son's gravesite by members of the Hugo Fire Department. He used a wheelchair at the funeral at Eagle Brook Church in White Bear Lake.
There, Hugo firefighters saluted as pallbearers placed Nathaniel's small casket into the hearse and a bagpiper played "Amazing Grace."
Mementos and photos detailing Nathaniel's short life filled the church lobby. They were displayed on tables covered with Thomas the Tank Engine tablecloths.
There were dozens of snapshots of him as a baby: meeting his big sister for the first time at the hospital when he was born, playing in the bathtub, covered with food in his high chair.
In others, he models a special Christmas outfit, licks birthday-cake frosting from his fingers and sits in a small plastic bin.
Display boards explained that "Nate was a great doer of puzzles. At day care, he could put some together faster than his teachers."
He also was learning to say the names of shapes and colors; "wed suh'ko" meant red circle.
A remembrance card said Nathaniel — which means "gift from God" — loved the book "Goodnight Moon." "Nate loved to have 'Night Night Moon' read to him," the card said. "It is a fitting way to say farewell to Nate. 'Goodnight Nate-Nate."
A fuzzy brown teddy bear sat on one of the tables next to a heartbreaking sign.
"I am imposter Teddy," the sign said.
"Teddy is, of course, with Nate-Nate."
http://www.twincities.com/ci_9459445?source=most_emailed
Two-year-old storm victim Nathaniel Prindle is laid to rest Monday.
Nathaniel Prindle would have loved seeing — and hearing — the choo-choo train at his funeral.
The 2-year-old, who died during the May 25 tornado in Hugo, was buried Monday in Washington County, just east of his hometown in a country graveyard his family chose because freight trains regularly chug past.
Canadian Pacific officials arranged to have two locomotives and a caboose waiting on the tracks south of the Withrow Cemetery in May Township.
When the graveside service concluded late Monday afternoon and dozens of orange and white helium balloons had been released, the bright-red train and brown caboose slowly rumbled past Nathaniel's grave.
The engineer gave Nathaniel a long train-whistle salute as the train headed east, out of sight.
It was a fitting farewell to the boy who loved choo-choo trains.
Nate, who would have turned 2 1/2 on June 9, drowned when the tornado lifted him and dropped him into a nearby pond. His parents, Gerard "Jerry" and Christina Prindle, and 4-year-old sister, Annika, were trapped in the rubble of their home.
Annika remained in critical condition Monday at Gillette Children's Specialty Healthcare in St. Paul.
Jerry Prindle, who had surgery last week at Regions Hospital in St. Paul to repair a broken bone near his hip, was carried to his son's gravesite by members of the Hugo Fire Department. He used a wheelchair at the funeral at Eagle Brook Church in White Bear Lake.
There, Hugo firefighters saluted as pallbearers placed Nathaniel's small casket into the hearse and a bagpiper played "Amazing Grace."
Mementos and photos detailing Nathaniel's short life filled the church lobby. They were displayed on tables covered with Thomas the Tank Engine tablecloths.
There were dozens of snapshots of him as a baby: meeting his big sister for the first time at the hospital when he was born, playing in the bathtub, covered with food in his high chair.
In others, he models a special Christmas outfit, licks birthday-cake frosting from his fingers and sits in a small plastic bin.
Display boards explained that "Nate was a great doer of puzzles. At day care, he could put some together faster than his teachers."
He also was learning to say the names of shapes and colors; "wed suh'ko" meant red circle.
A remembrance card said Nathaniel — which means "gift from God" — loved the book "Goodnight Moon." "Nate loved to have 'Night Night Moon' read to him," the card said. "It is a fitting way to say farewell to Nate. 'Goodnight Nate-Nate."
A fuzzy brown teddy bear sat on one of the tables next to a heartbreaking sign.
"I am imposter Teddy," the sign said.
"Teddy is, of course, with Nate-Nate."