La Broquerie couple laid to rest

The La Broquerie couple would have celebrated their 17th wedding anniversary Saturday, instead family and friends laid them to rest Friday afternoon.

37-year-old David Dik and his 35-year-old pregnant wife Elisabeth were killed in a head-on collision on Highway 52, about a mile east of Steinbach, last Saturday.

They left behind 11 children who, on Friday, said goodbye to their parents for the last time.

The funeral was at the Dik’s church in Mitchell. It has room for about 600 people but over 1,000 packed into the church, many standing for the hour and half service.

The church parking lot was full an hour before the service began. Many people parked along the road and walked the kilometre to the church.

Inside, the 11 children sat quietly in the front row, with aunts and uncles, while listening to the minister give a German sermon, a choir sing hymns and friends read poems.

"There was quiet a bit of crying," said Deidrich Reimer, a friend of the family, "I couldn’t see but it was pretty close to the front so it could have been the children. There was a lot of the old hymns with just barely a piano but there were quiet a few wet eyes in the place."

A trust fund has been set up for the children at Steinbach Credit Union. The children will live with an aunt and uncle and hope to return back to a normal life and go back to school next week.