Days before she and another educator died in the bus crash, Beatrice Ferrari was at St. Kilian R.C. Church in Farmingdale, laughing with the priest about her grandson’s outburst during Mass.
The Rev. George Oppong Afriyie, associate pastor at St. Kilian, told her not to worry, recalling a week later his message to her: “She must always bring the child to church.”
“Because [in two years] the child will not still be shouting. He will be growing up here and all this will be history,” the priest said during his sermon Sunday at the church.
Over 400 people were at Sunday’s 9:30 a.m. service, many wearing school colors, remembering those lost and injured in Thursday’s tragedy.
On Thursday, Ferrari, 77, of Farmingdale, a retired social studies teacher, was among two killed in Orange County in the crash of a charter bus of band students she was helping chaperone.
Farmingdale High School band director Gina Pellettiere, who died in the crash on Thursday.
Credit: Newsday
The crash also killed Gina Pellettiere, 43, of Massapequa, the Farmingdale High School director of bands.
The patients were among 40 students and four adults heading to a band camp in Greeley, Pennsylvania, when the bus crashed on Interstate 84 in the town of Wawayanda and tumbled down a 50-foot ravine.
A total of 22 people were hospitalized at five facilities on Friday, and seven had been released by Saturday afternoon, but it was unclear how many others remained. Some of the hospitals did not respond to press inquiries.
Patty Baker attended Mass with her own children Sunday and she recalled sitting behind Ferrari during that moment with her grandson just a week earlier.
“Everyone knows everybody, it’s pretty small, tight-knit,” she said.
Dozens of people in attendance wore green or black “Dalers” shirts to Mass. One man’s T-shirt read, “I’m here for the band.”
Baker noted how the school colors have been more visible than usual in the days since the crash and Sunday’s service was an…
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