TOWN IN MOURNING
Massive wake for 8 limo vics
Hundreds of people gathered at a wake Friday to mourn four sisters, three of their husbands and a brother-in-law who all died in last week’s devastating upstate limousine crash.
Vessels holding the victims’ ashes were placed at the front of St. Stanislaus Roman Catholic Church in upstate Amsterdam, each accompanied by a victim’s photograph.
The sisters — Amy King Steenburg, Allison King, Mary King Dyson and Abigail King Jackson — had grown up near the church in the small Mohawk Valley city.
Their brother remembered the close-knit quartet to The Post recently as “The Four Musketeers.”
The sisters were among the 20 people killed Saturday when a stretch SUV limousine crashed in Schoharie en route to a birthday celebration at a brewery for Amy.
All 17 passengers died along with the vehicle’s driver. Two pedestrians were killed, too.
With so many people expected to attend, Friday’s wake was held at the massive 1897 church instead of a funeral home — and still, the line to get inside stretched around the block.
Mourners waited for as long as two hours to pay their respects.
A yellow school bus ferried people to and from the church and a nearby parking lot.
The four sisters were from a family of seven siblings.
Amy was celebrating her 30th birthday when the limo crashed. The newlywed was a nurse studying to get her master’s in nursing-home administration.
The crash also killed her husband, Axel Steenburg, whom she married in June, and his brother, Rich, who was his best man.
Allison, 31, was a customer-service rep for a local business. She raised chickens and ducks on the organic vegetable farm in upstate Galway, where she lived with her fiancé, Brian VonSchenk, who was not in the limo.
Mary, 33, was a mother and Army veteran who as a captain served in Iraq for one year.
She died with her husband, Robert Dyson, and they were survived by a young son, Isaac.
“Robert and Mary were both very active parents, always wanting to show Isaac the world,” read the dad’s obituary.
The fourth sister, Abigail, 35, was also a mom and had taught at the Lynch Academy school in Amsterdam.
She and her husband, Adam Jackson, 34, who died in the crash with her, were parents to two young girls, Archer and Elle.
Mourners were asked to donate to the families’ three children in lieu of flowers.
The crash was the nation’s worst traffic accident in nearly a decade. The limo-company operator has been charged with criminally negligent homicide.
Authorities have said the vehicle never should have been on the road, having failed two state inspections in six months, and that the driver wasn’t properly licensed.