"After we had a little time to process the shock and horror, we felt we couldn’t have written a more perfect script..."

"My sister said the only thing he didn’t do was fall into the casket."

The 94-year-old World War II veteran’s impromptu wake was held Saturday at the same eastern New York funeral home where his wife Gwen’s funeral was already scheduled. She was 89 when she died on Feb. 8. After Norman died just steps from the funeral home, the daughters decided their parents would be mourned together at the same time....

[The daughter] requested that her father’s body be put into a casket and placed in the viewing room with her mother’s cremated remains, which had been placed in an urn. Mourners who started arriving soon after for Gwen’s funeral were greeted by a note Merrilyne posted at the entrance: “Surprise — It’s a double header — Gwen and Norman Hendrickson — Feb. 16, 2013.”

Norman and Gwen Hendrickson had been married for 66 years.