Sandy Hook victims mourned for lives cut short
USA TODAY
Published 6:24 p.m. ET Dec.16, 2012 - Updated 1:01 a.m. ET Dec. 18, 2012

Jesse Lewis, 6

Jesse Lewis loved math and horse-back riding. The 6-year-old was in Soto's class, his father Neil Heslin told the New York Post.

"He was just a happy boy," Heslin told the paper.

Jesse lived on a horse farm, Wild Rose Farm, with his mother. He loved to play with the animals on the farm and had been horseback riding since he was 1 and 1/2 years old.

Neighbor Judy Petro said she occasionally saw Jesse riding with his mother, Scarlett, as the pair cut through the Petros' property to reach a horse trail in the neighborhood.

"They rode horses, and we gave her permission to ride through our land to get to the trail that the horses go on. Once in a while her son came with her. She's a very nice woman and very generous. It's just horrible that it happened. The whole thing is just unbelievable,'' Petro said.

Another neighbor, Irene Arfaras, described Scarlett Lewis as "very friendly'' and "a hard worker'' for running the farm in addition to a day job.

Scarlett Lewis is the author of Rose's Foal, a children's book she wrote about a draft horse and how she teaches her foal about life. In an author's note on Amazon, she said she wrote the book about the foal, born the day after 9/11, in honor of her sons.

She described taking photographs for the book with her son "in a red Flyer Wagon with his blanket and pacifier waiting patiently in the background. ''What Lewis wrote about the now deceased draft horse could now be said about her own child: "We miss her dearly every day, and this book also helps keep her memory alive. Of course we look forward to seeing her in heaven."