PHILADELPHIA — Several hundred mourners from across the Philadelphia region gathered Monday for a funeral services for nine children and three adults who died this month when fire and smoke swept through their Fairmount row house.
Family and friends — most wearing white — gathered inside Temple University’s Liacouras Center for a three-hour service celebrating the lives of those who perished.
Members of clergy and family members read touching eulogies remembering the loving sisters and supportive siblings; a talented athlete and giving classmate; a graceful ballerina and sassy toddler.
At the front of the center were the 12 white and gold coffins — most much too small in size — covered in white lilies, hydrangeas and roses.
Fire investigators said last week they were nearly certain the blaze began in the early morning of Jan. 5 when a 5-year-old boy lit a Christmas tree while playing with a cigarette lighter in a second-floor room. Flames and thick smoke quickly rose into the third-floor, where a dozen family members slept. The boy and another family member survived, as did six occupants of a lower apartment in the property, which is owned by the Philadelphia Housing Authority.
The city formally identified the victims as sisters Rosalee McDonald, 33, Virginia Thomas, 30, and Quinsha White, 18, and nine of their children, ages 2 to 16.
After the service, Philadelphia police escorted a dozen hearses up rain-slicked Broad Street for private burials at Chelten Hills Cemetery.
