Amish mark school shooting anniversary

Amish reach out to Roberts' widow, kids
In Nickel Mines, where life had been marked by the predictable rhythms of the growing season and the church calendar, Roberts’ attack made the modern world suddenly inescapable.

The usual quiet was shattered by the arrival of hundreds of police and emergency workers and the ominous sound of medical and news helicopters overhead.

Amid the chaos and heartbreak, the Amish instinctively reached out to Roberts’ widow, Marie, the three children he left behind and his parents. Even before their own five daughters had been buried, the victims’ families were showing Roberts’ family kindness, condolence and compassion.

At the end of the week, a series of horse-and-buggy corteges carried the dead girls’ coffins from private funeral ceremonies, past the Roberts’ home and on to freshly dug graves in the Bart Township Amish cemetery.

Roberts’ family quietly laid him to rest in an unmarked grave five days after the murders, beside the body of his late daughter in Georgetown.

About half the 75 mourners at Roberts’ graveside were Amish, including family members of victims, and the Amish later designated a portion of the millions in donations they have received to benefit Roberts’ children and widow.

On Oct. 12, the Amish had the schoolhouse torn down before dawn, converting the land where it stood into pasture. It only took a few months to erect a new and more secure school nearby.

Pain and grief, and gratitude
Four of the five wounded girls returned to class before the end of December, although the fifth and most seriously injured suffered a head wound that left her completely disabled. She is confined to a wheelchair and is fed by a tube.

One girl recently had an operation to help restore function in her shoulder and arm, and another has been plagued by vision problems.

Each day has brought pain and grief for the Amish, a community spokesman said recently, but also a tremendous sense of gratitude and the need to share their experiences with others.

Four months after the massacre at Virginia Tech, members of the Amish community traveled to Blacksburg, Va., to pass along a comfort quilt.

“All that has been done to lift our burden is greatly appreciated and leaves us with a sense of indebtedness to everyone, but also makes us more aware of our gracious God to whom we owe a larger debt,” the Amish community said in a statement last week.

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