Our thanks to an unamed “Good Samaritan”

Dear Editor,
On Saturday, June 9th, my family and I, along with several relatives, were in Rainy River for the funeral of my grandmother, Jane Burnell.
Because of the large number of out of town guests we stayed in Baudette. When it came time to attend the funeral, we gave ourselves 45 minutes to make the five minute journey from
Baudette to Rainy River, thinking this was more than enough time for all the family members to gather at the church for the service.
We were shocked when we arrived at the U.S.-Canada border to find a line of cars stretching from the Canadian side of the bridge, completely over the bridge to the U.S. side. We quickly decided, as a family, that there was no way we were going to make it to the funeral in time if we stayed in this line of vehicles and immediately returned to the U.S. and began walking across the bridge. The Customs Officer on the U.S. side kindly phoned ahead to the Canadian side to alert them of our impending arrival so our entrance to Canada would go smoothly. Once through Customs we continued our walk up the highway. We soon realized there was no way we were going to make it to the church in time for the beginning of the funeral, but we continued our journey. Fortunately for us a good samaritan, whom we had passed during our walk over the bridge, pulled her van over and asked us if we wanted a ride to the funeral. We gratefully piled into her van and asked how she knew we were going to the funeral. “It’s a small town” she replied.
We are forever grateful to this woman who so kindly provided us with transportation to the church and allowed us to share in the celebration of our grandmother’s life and her interment in the cemetery, with our friends and family. We never got your name... but thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
–Rick Burnell and family.