The train of wagons passed through town three times on the same grim errand. And still they were not done burying the girls.
The funeral processions for four of the five Amish girls murdered in their schoolhouse left their homes in Bart Township on Thursday and moved down the same narrow streets to the small fenced-in graveyard on the little rise amid the fields.
The black-clad men and women, girls and boys, in the wagons did not stop and barely turned to look as they rolled past the flag at half-staff outside the post office and the crude sign taped to the sawhorse in a driveway: “Our thoughts and prayers to all the families.”
The wagons, following the hand-carved wooden coffins, kept going past the home of the 32-year-old man who caused the bloodshed–Charles Carl Roberts IV–who bound 10 girls and shot them with bullets and buckshot before shooting himself. Five have died.
The morning broke cold, and a brisk wind ruffled the corn stalks and blew leaves off the trees. But town resident Jacquie Hess felt she had to watch.
“It’s hard to accept what has happened,” said Hess. “I feel sympathy for them. I feel sorry for them that it happened this way, that they lost children, also.”
Hess is the aunt of Roberts’ wife, Marie, and she is one thread in the close weave between killer and victims. Her family, including Charles Roberts, drove the trucks that carried the milk from the dairy farm of the Fisher family, who had three daughters at the schoolhouse the day Roberts shot it up. One of the daughters escaped, another was injured, and the third–13-year-old Marian–was killed. She was buried Thursday.
In the classroom Monday, Marian was among those students who asked that Roberts kill her first and spare the younger girls, according to Rita Rhoads, a Mennonite nurse and midwife who delivered two of the girls buried Thursday. She cited an account from one of the survivors.
Marian’s sister Barbie Fisher, 12, who had been hospitalized, told relatives that she recognized Roberts as the milk truck driver when he entered the school. According to Rhoads, she said Roberts talked to the students about himself and his anger at God–an anger police said was partly fueled by the loss of his firstborn infant daughter nine years ago.
“He asked them to pray for him,” Rhoads said.
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The day after the shooting, Hess visited Marian Fisher’s father to offer her condolences.
“They were very caring and felt that we had a harder part to go through than what they did. And they had told us that there was no hard feelings, that all was forgiven, that we just keep pushing forward and asking God to help us get through it,” Hess said.
Marie Roberts was invited to Marian Fisher’s funeral, Hess said, but Hess didn’t know if Roberts planned to attend. In addition to Marian’s service, funerals were held Thursday for Naomi Rose Ebersole, 7, and sisters Mary Liz Miller, 8, and Lena Miller, 7. The funeral for the fifth slain girl, Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12, was planned for Friday. Hess said there are no set plans for Roberts’ funeral.
One additional child, who was not identified, had been taken off a ventilator, according to Rhoads, the midwife.
“The family was interested in taking the child home,” she said. “It appeared to doctors as if she would die.”
Most of the funeral ritual was blocked from public view by Pennsylvania State Police troopers intent on preserving the families’ privacy.
As the first procession of 34 buggies passed down Georgetown Road on Thursday, a female neighbor who declined to give her name began to cry.
“You learn a lot from [the Amish], how they deal with things,” she said. “It’s just amazing. It’s not just words.”
As the wagons rolled by, Mike Young, 44, took off his green baseball cap and watched the procession.
“It’s just a real sad situation all around,” he said. “This is our own little 9/11.”