Funeral set for boy who died trying to save father
A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday for the 12-year-old Norristown boy who died last week when he ran back into his burning house to try to save his father.
A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday for the 12-year-old Norristown boy who died last week when he ran back into his burning house to try to save his father.
The service for Sanford Harling III, nicknamed "Man Man," will be held at Christian Network Outreach United Church of Christ, at 1001 Swede Street in Norristown. Burial will follow at Merion Memorial Park, 59 West Rock Hill Road, in Bala Cynwyd.
Terrance Phillips, Sanford's 23-year-old brother, said Thursday the service and burial will be open to members of the public who want to share their condolences, but asked that reporters not cover the events to allow the family privacy.
It was shortly before 9 a.m. last Friday when fire broke out in the family's three-story brick duplex on the 1000 block of Markley Street and smoke reached the top floor.
Sanford, his mother Dana Henderson, 43, and his 14-year-old sister had made it out a back door, the family has said, while Phillips climbed out his third-floor-bedroom window to a roof to make his way down.
But Sanford returned to the house to try to save his father, Sanford Harling Jr., 58, who had recently undergone hip-replacement surgery. The boy didn't know that his father was able to jump out of the house from a second-floor window.
Phillips said Thursday that Harling Jr., his stepfather, remains at Paoli Hospital, recovering from injuries sustained in the jump. He said his stepfather was not bedridden at the time of the fire, but that it was hard for him to move around.
Norristown Fire Chief Tom O'Donnell said Thursday that the cause of the fire has not yet been determined. He said the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office and the Pennsylvania State Police are investigating the fire.
Sanford, who was the youngest of six siblings, was a seventh-grader at Lakeside School in North Wales and a member of the Norristown Youth Eagles Football Program.
His maternal grandfather, Kenneth Peterson, 62, said that Sanford helped feed the homeless on the Sundays before Thanksgiving at the American Legion in Norristown.
Rose Young, who began the Feed the Hungry event with Peterson and another person, said Thursday that Sanford "helped out ever since we started." This past Thanksgiving was the ninth year of the event, which Young said is "for anybody who wants a meal, not just the homeless."
About two years ago, he took on more responsibility, she said.
"He handed out the desserts," she said. "He cleaned off the tables, took out the trash."
"I always thought he was a pleasant, sweet little boy," she said.
Young, a committeeperson for the Democratic Party in Norristown, said Sanford also helped a get-out-the-vote effort for Montgomery County's first African-American district judge, Gregory Scott, who was recently sworn in as a magisterial district judge in Norristown.
A GoFundMe page set up by the Norristown Youth Eagles football team for Sanford's family had raised more than $39,000 as of Thursday.
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