Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Margarita Guardado laid to rest

Overflow crowd attends memorial Mass for homicide victim


By TERRY SMITH
Express Staff Writer

Friends and family of Margarita Guardado gathered last Friday to remember her. Photo by David N. Seelig

Funeral services for 16-year-old Margarita Guardado started precisely on time Friday afternoon with Hailey soloist Patricia Sepulveda singing the lovely "Ave Maria."

An overflow crowd attended memorial Mass for Guardado at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Hailey. Guardado, known by her friends as "Maggie," was the tragic victim of a homicide near her home in southeast Hailey on Aug. 17.

Some 75 participants had to listen to services from the hallway, a room adjacent to the chapel or even from the sidewalk and front lawn of the church. The congregation, estimated at 350, seemed a near even mix of Hispanic and non-Hispanic mourners.

Attendees mainly kept their emotions in check until the casket, draped with a white shroud with a red and golden cross, was wheeled to the front of the chapel.

The service was conducted almost entirely in Spanish, and although the meaning of the words may not have been precise to many of the non-Hispanic listeners, the message and emotion seemed clear.

First speaker Yesenia Terrazaz could barely contain her tears as she recited Bible scripture, but she made it through passages of Psalms all the same.

"The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want," Terrazaz recited in Spanish.

A four-piece string ensemble by the name of Coro de San Carlos played Spanish ballads and a few contemporary songs that were fitting with the solemnity of the occasion.

The ensemble played and sang Spanish lyrics to Simon and Garfunkel's the "Sounds of Silence" while the Rev. Jorge E. Garcia prepared communion.

Following sacrament services, Garcia waved incense smoke around the casket bearing the body of Guardado. The act symbolizes the rising of the soul from its earthly body or grave.

"Let us take our sister to her grave away," said Garcia in one of the few instances when he spoke English.

Graveside services followed at Hailey Cemetery. Guardado was taken there in a 1994 black Cadillac funeral coach of Wood River Chapel.

Many mourners carried bouquets or even single white roses that they lay on or near the casket, which was sky blue with modest ornate chrome trim.




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