{"id":63141,"date":"2015-10-19T10:30:33","date_gmt":"2015-10-19T15:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=63141"},"modified":"2015-10-19T10:56:32","modified_gmt":"2015-10-19T15:56:32","slug":"grieving-alberta-community-remembers-girls-killed-in-farm-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/10\/19\/grieving-alberta-community-remembers-girls-killed-in-farm-accident\/","title":{"rendered":"Grieving Alberta community remembers girls killed in farm accident"},"content":{"rendered":"
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WITHROW, Alberta — About 500 coloured helium-filled balloons were released into the air when a small Alberta farming community paid tribute to three young sisters who were smothered last week in a load of canola seed.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of people crowded into the Withrow Gospel Mission, west of Red Deer, on Sunday to honour the memories of Catie Bott, who was 13, and her twin 11-year-old siblings, Jana and Dara Bott.<\/p>\n

The girls were fatally injured last Tuesday evening on their family farm while playing on a truck loaded with the grain.<\/p>\n

Two of them were pronounced dead at the scene, while the third died after being taken to an Edmonton hospital.<\/p>\n

They will be buried on Friday at Crossroads Church in Red Deer.<\/p>\n

A GoFundMe page created by a family friend for the girls’ parents surpassed its goal of $100,000 in donations in just three days.<\/p>\n

For many people in the community, the Bott sisters were considered members of their own extended family.<\/p>\n

“We all went to each other’s house after church every Sunday,” said Baillie Burns. “We’d always see each other.”<\/p>\n

“We would paint and cook together,” recalled Adelita Studer, Jana’s best friend. “She was just perfect.”<\/p>\n

Family friend Dave Brand said the fact the girls are no longer around is tough to comprehend.<\/p>\n

“As a community, we’re still reeling,” said Brand. “It’s really difficult to conceptualize what happened.”<\/p>\n

Brian Allan, pastor of the mission, said most weeks the girls’ parents, Roger and Bonita, are on the platform leading the singing.<\/p>\n

“Everyone feels a connection with them. We all feel the pain as well.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WITHROW, Alberta — About 500 coloured helium-filled balloons were released into the air when a small Alberta farming community paid …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":63150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ca","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}