Nova Scotia school holds memorial for two teen girls struck and killed by train

Photo: Hants East Rural High School

LANTZ, N.S.—Relatives, classmates, teachers, Mounties, air cadets and rugby players filled every seat of the Hants East Rural High auditorium Saturday afternoon to celebrate the lives of two teenage girls who were struck and killed by a freight train last week.

Members of the rural Nova Scotia community gathered at the Lantz high school where 17-year-old Cienna MacPherson was supposed to graduate this month, with a live feed being streamed for the friends and family of 18-year-old former international student Joana Hofer, who was visiting from Germany at the time of the accident.

Rev. Canon David Fletcher, who officiated the service, said that the rumbling tracks, clanging of gates and whistle of the train that is a part of daily life along the Trunk 2 highway corridor had taken on new sombre meaning.

“We live with trains,” he told the crowd. “We also now share a tragedy … Over the next many days, months and indeed years, whenever we hear the trains we will think of Cienna and Jo.”

Fletcher encouraged locals still reeling from the loss of the two young women to draw on one another for strength, but cautioned that concrete answers surrounding the circumstances of the teenagers’ deaths may remain elusive.

“Some of us will come looking for facts. How did this happen? What was going on?” he said. “The answers to questions such as those do not serve the heart that well.”

According to RCMP investigators, the teens were not at a crossing when they were hit by the Halifax-bound CN train on June 10. A spokesperson for CN Rail said the crew followed all the proper procedures, but that it was physically impossible to stop the train in time.

Const. Tammy Lobb said the investigation is ongoing, but we may never know exactly what happened that night, and the only people who do are unfortunately no longer with us.

Many members of the audience had known MacPherson since she was a child. Some had seen her loping across the rugby field or marvelled at her sense of artistry from her portraits of her sister, Jessica, right down to the designs on her hand-painted canvas sneakers. A select few had shared the skies with her after she earned her single engine pilot’s licence with the Air Cadets in 2015.

In their tributes, instructors joked about being on the receiving end of her “sarcastic” sense of humour.

“She was a little bit of a wild child,” said rugby coach Craig Sherry, standing on stage by a display of championship plaques and MacPherson’s number 13 jersey. “She was living on the edge. Loved to meet people. Loved to do things. And I think that wild child came out hard.”

Sherry recalled how MacPherson showed Hofer around the hallways when she arrived at the school in January to improve her English and learn about Canadian culture.

From Dusseldorf, Hofer made a lasting impression during her short time in Lantz. Fletcher relayed remarks prepared by Hofer’s father which highlighted her close relationship with her sister, with whom she shared a love of reading, borrowing more than a thousand books by the age of 12.

After being accepted to several German universities, Hofer returned to Nova Scotia to visit her Canadian host family, the MacPhersons, and celebrate graduation with her friends.

As the memorial service came to a close, mourners filed out of the theatre in near silence. First the Mounties in red, then the Air Cadets in blue, followed by the yellow-jerseyed rugby players. An urn containing MacPherson’s ashes was carried with her immediate family members, then the rest of the community shuffled down the aisle, many in black with sunflowers pinned to their lapels and used tissues in their pockets.

On the front lawn of the Hants East Rural High, two trees have been planted about 4.5 metres apart—a red oak for Germany and a red maple for Canada. Dozens of white roses lay in the soil as both countries’ flags flew at half-mast above the school’s entrance.

Principal Mike Smith said he hopes the trees “will grow to unite as one.”