Daniel Barden
TRIBUTE: A young child stands with an honor guard of firefighters yesterday at the funeral of Sandy Hook victim Daniel Barden (inset right). (AP)
He always dreamed of being a firefighter — and yesterday, he got a hero’s farewell.
First-grader Daniel Barden — “one of those angels” killed at Sandy Hook Elementary — was laid to rest yesterday as an honor guard of firefighters, police officers and military servicemen from as far away as New York City lined the streets leading to St. Rose of Lima Church.
Daniel, 7 hoped to follow in two relatives’ footsteps and become a firefighter.
“There’s a new playground in heaven, a playground with 20 beautiful perfect little angels,” choked-up school-bus driver Gary Wheeler told mourners at the church.
“Daniel is one of those angels.
“Daniel had a smile as big as the sky, minus his two front teeth,” Wheeler said in his eulogy.
The young, rambunctious redhead, he said, “would run and give me a big bear hug” every time.
“He had eyes that sparkled, sometimes with mischief. He would race the bus down the street,” Wheeler said.
“He would always win.”
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Rows of NYPD and FDNY members joined their brethren from Daniel’s hometown of Newtown and elsewhere. The boy was also the nephew of NYPD Lt. James Giblin.
Madeline Giblin, noting that her young cousin’s nicknames included “Hurricane Daniel,” said, “He was too full of life, love and joy.”
His funeral was the first of two yesterday at St. Rose, which is holding funerals for nine of the 20 children who were massacred.
Emotional wakes and funerals for six other Sandy Hook victims also were held yesterday.
Shivering mourners waited outside in line for nearly five hours to enter the wake for brave principal Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung — the first person gunman Adam Lanza killed after she tried to tackle him — at the Woodbury Funeral Home.
“She made everybody feel special,” said Hochsprung’s former neighbor, school-bus driver Renata Hilse. “She stood for what she believed in and never backed down. She was sweet and funny, too.”
Sandra Prendergast, whose daughter is taught by Hochsprung’s husband, George, said, “He was always talking about her.”
“We’re all thinking we’re going to have to support George, because what is he going to do now?”
Gov. Dannel Malloy attended Hochsprung’s wake and the funeral of kindergartner Charlotte Bacon, 6, whose white casket was surrounded by stuffed animals and wreaths of pink roses.
A eulogy read alternately by her grandfather and uncles called Charlotte “determined, fearless, coy, precocious, creative, independent, authentic, dramatic and beautiful.”
And at the funeral for 6-year-old Caroline Previdi at St. Rose, her mother, Sandy, said she “always had a smile on her.”
Additional reporting by
Kenneth Garger and Tara Palmeri