Nearly nine months after Jimmy Batchelor’s tragic death in a raging Buffalo blizzard, his extended family paid their final respects to the man everyone knew as “Skip.”
Batchelor’s cremated remains were buried Friday in a plot under the gentle shade of a pine tree near Scajaquada Creek in Forest Lawn. Late-summer weather accompanied a brief graveside memorial service. It was a far cry from the bitter cold, whipping winds and unrelenting snowfall that led to Batchelor’s death on Dec. 24.
The Christmas weekend blizzard for many Western New Yorkers is already a distant memory, or the latest storm-for-the-ages story of yore to tell. But for Skip Batchelor’s family, nagging questions linger along with the grief over his loss.
A motorist and her passenger found Batchelor, 73, who was mentally disabled and lived in a group home, in the snow at East Ferry Street and Jefferson Avenue and loaded him into her car on Christmas Eve during the height of the blizzard.
The driver, Fantasia Edwards, 27, and her friend Kentrice Gadley tried to get back home, but Edwards’ 2014 Ford Fusion ended up stuck in the snow, and Batchelor died in the car before they could get there.
Skip’s relatives said they were beyond grateful for what Edwards and Gadley – two strangers – did that day. Without them, Skip would have died alone in a snowbank, they said.
“If I had 10,000 tongues I couldn’t thank them enough for having the courage and generosity to get out of their vehicle that night. It was dangerous for them to do that.
And for them to put their lives at stake for someone they didn’t know – it’s just words can’t express our gratitude. We are just so grateful that they didn’t leave him alone,” said Virginia Batchelor, one of Skip’s first cousins.
Jimmy Batchelor was born in Weldon, N.C., in 1949 and moved as a youngster to Buffalo, where he graduated with honors in 1968 from Burgard Vocational High School, according to…
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