Funerals held for 2 more NYC derailment victims
Dec 6, 2013, 9:55 PM
COLD SPRING, N.Y. (AP) – Two more funerals were held Friday for victims of the New York City train derailment, including one for a sound and lighting expert who died while heading to work on the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.
An Irish pipe solo was played at the Cold Spring funeral for Jim Lovell, the technician who had also worked on NBC’s “Today Show” for the past 20 years.
The funeral for Donna Smith was held in Newburgh; the paralegal was active in her church and civic groups and was headed to hear her sister sing Handel’s “Messiah” with a choral group.
A 60-car procession rolled through Newburgh Friday between a funeral home and cemetery, where six firefighters in dress uniforms carried the coffin to its burial plot.
At Lovell’s funeral, his wife, Nancy Montgomery, a member of the town council in Philipstown, shared a front pew with their three sons, ages 12 to 17, and his daughter from a previous marriage. Montgomery occasionally rested her head on a son’s shoulder.
Montgomery thanked mourners who couldn’t get into the crowded service at Our Lady of Loretto Church, and told them Lovell loved them. Both the main sanctuary and a basement room with a video feed were overflowing.
In his homily, the Rev. Brian McSweeney said Lovell was “a unifier, not a divider.”
“Our separation is his reunion,” he said. “He is freed from all the things we worry about.”
The derailment, said McSweeney, “was not the will of God. It is the result of our imperfections.”
There were many embraces as his family followed the casket out of the church. The recessional was the Beatles’ “Let it Be.”
Accident victim James Ferrari of Montrose was buried Thursday. His brother, Charlie Ferrari, said the accident was “just not fair.”
“He hoped to find someone who loved him and someone he could love back,” the brother said. “He found that in Francie,” his wife.
The funeral for Kisook Ahn will be held Saturday in Queens. The Korean immigrant, a registered nurse, was returning home after her overnight shift at the Sunshine Children’s Home and Rehab Center in Ossining.
(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
