Nearly a week after Olga Woltering was killed in a shooting at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, friends and family gathered at her church in Marietta to say their final goodbyes.
The 84-year-old great-grandmother was one of five people killed Friday when authorities say Esteban Santiago, 26, opened fire in the Terminal 2 baggage claim. He faces performing an act of violence at an international airport and weapons charges, the Associated Press reported. Ralph, her husband, survived the shooting.
The two were set to go on a cruise just before the gunfire happened.
Woltering’s loved ones said she called everyone she knew lovely just like she was.
“She was too good to be true,” church member Lynn Southall told Channel 2 Action News. “Beautiful smile, beautiful spirit. Just a kind and loving person."
Southall was one of hundreds that gathered at Transfiguration Catholic Church to honor Woltering’s warm, jovial spirit.
“She had a beautiful smile, happy attitude,” Paula Hall told Channel 2, “(She was) never made a stranger.”
As loved ones gathered to honor Woltering, there was still the eerie reminder that in tragedy life is too short.
“All of a sudden now it's got a reality that it didn't have before,” Southall said, “because there's a face that you know that's involved in it. And it just I get chills just talking about it, it's just really sad.”
The Wolterings’ church family said they would continue to be there for husband Ralph and the family.
“We’ll be here to wrap them in our arms and take care of them,” Hall said.
The family has asked that in lieu of flowers donations be made to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
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