Bravest father’s farewell
Bravest pledge of support to daughter of fire hero
The grieving 8-year-old daughter of fallen firefighter William Tolley now has a father in every member of his firehouse, his comrade pledged Thursday at his funeral.
“Bella’s our little girl now, and we’re gonna take care of her,” said Jarrett Katarski, who was stationed with Tolley at Ladder Co. 135 in Glendale, Queens, as he teared up during a eulogy.
“You’re gonna have 40 protective and overbearing dads looking over your shoulder now,” Katarski told the child, who wore her late father’s dress cap and clutched a blanket with his image on it during the funeral at St. Martin of Tours in Bethpage, LI.
Pastor Patrick Woods recounted the moment when Tolley’s widow, Marie, broke the news to their daughter.
“Bella, as wise as any ancient philosopher, says, ‘Mommy, Daddy is too young to die . . . I have no daddy,’ ” the pastor recalled.
“In the numbness of her pain, this is what Marie told Bella: ‘You know your daddy loved to help people — that’s what firemen do, they help people — and your daddy was a really good man at helping people.’ ”
“I can’t think of a more difficult conversation a parent could have with a child,” the priest concluded.
Tolley took Bella to church every week, and his funeral Mass included one of her favorite hymns, according to Woods.
“That song — ‘Halle, Halle, Halle’ — is one of Bella’s favorites from the 10 o’clock Mass, so we played it in her honor,” the pastor said.
Tolley, 42, plummeted five stories while trying to perform a “routine operation” after a fire had been extinguished at a Queens residential build-
ing on April 20. He died of his injuries at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center a short time later.
Sources said Tolley was trying to get his ladder bucket unstuck from a rooftop lip on the building at 1615 Putnam Ave.
One of the last things Tolley did that day was go to a bakery near his firehouse to inquire about cupcakes for Bella’s first Communion.
Mayor de Blasio, whose father died when he was 18, assured the youngster she will find comfort in her father’s sacrifice.
“Sometimes, of course, you’ll wish you knew him better, you’ll wish you had more time, but you’ll never have to wonder about his character, what he believed in, how he used his life on this earth,” de Blasio told Bella.
“You will know he was a hero, and it will sustain you.”
Thousands of firefighters lined up outside the church for the funeral. The half-mile stretch of Central Avenue leading to the church fell silent — save for the mournful skirl of bagpipes and the rumble of firetrucks — as the funeral procession arrived at about 11:30 a.m.
Tolley’s own Ladder 135 truck was draped in black and purple bunting as it carried his casket. The FDNY Emerald Society Pipes and Drums beat a somber march as the truck arrived.
Officials from the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation announced Monday that the mortgage on the family’s Bethpage home will be paid off with an undisclosed amount of money the charity has raised.