Balloons in memory of Williamsburg girl make long journey
Pierre Morin found balloons near a camp on Lac Pentecote in Quebec, Canada that were released in Clermont County in memory of Isabella Marie McCoy. The balloons traveled more than 1,000 miles in four months.
Edmister, along with her husband Ray McCroy and children Ray III, Xavier and Carly, set the balloons off on one year after Isabella Marie passed away. Isabella, who was 2-years-old, died from brain cancer in December of 2010.
“We wrote stuff on the pictures,” Edmister said. “These balloons are in honor of our daughter, if you find this please contact us.”
Edmister said they let the balloons go in a field near Eastgate in Clermont County.
While the family went on with their lives, the balloons traveled more than 1,000 miles in four months. They came to rest on a frozen lake, Lac Pentecote, in Quebec, Canada.
Edmister said she received a phone call from Fernand Hachey on April 15 or 16 this year, and he said his two non-english speaking friends, Pierre Morin and Denis Cossette, had found the balloons near a fishing camp on the frozen lake while they were traveling across it April 14.
Hachey said the two men caught a glimpse of the reflective balloons and stopped to see what they were. They found the deflated balloons, note and picture of Isabella still intact.
They brought the note and balloons to Hachey because they couldn’t speak English, and Hachey made the call to Edmister.
“I was dumbfounded,” Edmister said about receiving the call. “I thought, this is a joke this stuff doesn’t happen.”
Not long after, Hachey sent Edmister a package that contained photos of where the balloons were found, as well as an aerial view of the lake. He told Edmister that the balloons would likely have been lost in the trees if they had floated a little further.
On one of the photos, Hachey wrote that Isabella found a beautiful place to land.
Edmister mapped out how far the balloons had traveled, and from Eastgate to the camp on Lac Pentecote the distance was approximately 1,400 miles. The balloons took around four months to make the journey.
“When you do something like that for a child who passed away, I wasn’t expecting that,” Edmister said. “I wasn’t expecting someone to actually call me. It is really cool that it actually happened.”
Those ballons could have landed somewhere where nobody would find them. It is amazing that they were found. It is amazing that the people who found them didn’t speak english and didn’t throw them away.