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.

Star Tribune, Star Tribune
Nathaniel Prindle, 2, was killed by the tornado that hit a subdivision of Hugo.

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.

"Christy and Jerry are wonderful parents," she said during a tribute to her grandson, who would have turned 3 on Dec. 9. "He lived in a home of love."

Anderson talked about Nate's free-wheeling happiness. He loved puzzles, shapes, colors and graham crackers. He loved to run and crash into adults, giving them knee-high hugs. He talked about his excitement at going to a train museum with his father.

And his aunt, Susan Rhea, read Nate's favorite book, "Good Night Moon," while the pages were shown on screens above her.

"Goodnight, noises everywhere," she ended, and then: "Goodnight, Nate-Nate."

Mournful sounds of a bagpipe filled the little country cemetery as the funeral procession arrived under leaden skies. And with an engineer at the controls, the Canadian Pacific train sat on the nearby tracks, waiting for a little boy.

Kevin Giles • 651-298-1554