A bright red locomotive, a caboose hitched behind it, waited near the gravesite of Hugo's young tornado victim Monday. The "choo-choo" would have pleased 2-year-old Nathaniel Albert Prindle, who by all accounts loved trains big and small.
Nate, as he was known to family and friends, died on the eve of Memorial Day when the tornado crumpled his house in north Washington County and blew him into a nearby pond. Hundreds of people attended his funeral in White Bear Township, where his body lay in a red-and-white shirt and blue jeans in a small brown casket framed with purple balloons.
He was described as curious and imaginative, with a smile that poured out of his little body. He also loved his brown toy bear, known simply as Teddy, which was laid to rest with him in Withrow Cemetery.
The tornado hurt the Prindle family in other ways, too.
Their house, blown from its foundation and shredded, is a total loss. Nate's parents, Jerry and Christine, continue to recover from injuries; Jerry came to Eagle Brook Church in a wheelchair. Their other child, 4-year-old Annika, remains in critical condition at Gillette Children's Hospital, but in the midst of tragedy, some good news emerged Monday:
Annika opened her eyes.
The Rev. Trent Anderson, at times struggling with emotion at the podium, said the Prindles credit their faith for helping them endure "these life blows, these grenades and missiles and land mines that are detonating all around you."
A cadre of Hugo's volunteer firefighters -- rescuers who came to the aid of injured and dazed residents on May 25 -- brought the city's firetrucks to the funeral. Nate's child-care providers came, too. One of them was his maternal grandmother, Barbara Rhea, who for much of Nate's young life had taken care of him three days a week at her home in Bloomington.
