Lives remembered at string of Conn. services
Dec 23, 2012, 1:43 AM
(AP) – The community of Newtown, Conn., is wrapping up funerals and memorial services for the 26 children and adults killed on Dec. 14 at an elementary school. A look at services held Saturday:
ANA MARQUEZ-GREENE
A horse-drawn carriage brought the miniature coffin of Ana Marquez-Greene to the church in Bloomfield, Conn., where a thousand mourners gathered to bid goodbye.
The service for the 6-year-old at The First Cathedral church included a performance by Harry Connick Jr., who has played with the girl’s jazz saxophonist father, Jimmy Greene, the Connecticut Post reported.
Family members remembered her as wild-haired child with her own love of music.
“Ana had a song,” said the Rev. Paul Echtenkamp of Glory Chapel International Cathedral in Hartford. “It just came out of her.”
JOSEPHINE GAY
Monsignor Robert Weiss said at the funeral for 7-year-old Josephine Gay that she liked Barbie, her iPad and the color purple.
“Purple is the color of passion,” Weiss said, according to the New Haven Register.
Josephine’s parents, Michele and Bob, remembered how much she liked peanut butter, and how she would request a new spoon for each mouthful. They would find spoons covered with peanut butter in locations throughout the house.
Dozens of emergency responders paid their respects at the start of the service at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Newtown, walking through the church and up to the altar.
EMILIE PARKER
Emilie Parker, 6, was laid to rest in the northern Utah city of Ogden, next to her maternal grandfather, who died 2 1/2 months earlier.
Emilie’s parents emerged from Saturday’s solemn service carrying their two other daughters, Madeline and Samantha, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. The girls were wearing pink coats, their older sister’s favorite color.
The funeral procession then proceeded through streets lined by pink-clad observers, and by trees, bushes, signs and utility poles draped with pink ribbons and banners.
Her father, Robbie Parker, was one of the first parents to publicly talk about his loss and he expressed no animosity for the gunman. He’s sustained by the fact that the world is better for having had Emilie in it.
“I’m so blessed to be her dad,” he said.
(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
