Family member remembers ice victims

CHILTON - In Bernice Vogt's Chilton apartment, pictures of her son Danial Kleinhans and her granddaughter Savannah, come with a new emotion.

"I look at that three times a day," she said through a tear. "And I think they were cheated out of life."

Two lives that ended Saturday on Lake Winnebago, when Dan's pickup truck fell through a large crack on the ice.

"I cried so hard I couldn't stop," said Vogt.

Vogt is now left with a lot of questions about that day. Questions she may never have answers to but has to rely on the stories of others out on the ice.

"It snowed the night before," she said. "So it looked like snow until he got up to it... Because other people crossed that same place that day, but he had a heavier truck."

Vogt says she will always remember her son's love for farming, love of animals and dream to work for the Wisconsin DNR. And his love for Savannah.

"He was the best father anyone could ever have."

Savannah was a 4th grader at Cambria-Friesland Elementary School. She attended St. Gregory School in St. Nazianz from kindergarten through 3rd grade.

Vogt says her granddaughter always entertained.

"She was just full of life...She could sing like Hannah Montana."

Vogt says if there one positive, it is that father and daughter are together.

"We are going to have some ashes of hers mixed with her fathers...so they'll be together all the time."

There will be a joint service for Danial and Savannah Kleinhans this Thursday at Saint Gregory Parish in St. Nazianz. Visitation runs from 1 to 5:30 p.m., with a mass to follow.