REMEMBERING 9/11

Remembrances of an unwanted assignment

Remembering back seven years ago when all hell broke loose on Sept. 11, ingrained in my mind are the images of one story of an adult daughter of a resident of my then hometown in Manchester, Vt.

Because I was a freelance reporter for The Manchester Journal, my editor called with a simple and difficult directive — “Get out there and talk to residents who have grown kids in New York.”

In a small town like Manchester, [population 3,600 in 2001] there’s a three-minute pipeline to news, and within minutes those residents who had grown children living in New York called to say the children were fleeing the city to the safe refuge of Manchester.

One young man I spoke with said he went up to the roof of his apartment building and viewed the collapse of the tower.

But one story will visually remain with me forever. Sandy, the daughter of a restaurateur in town lived at Battery Park, about two blocks from the World Trade Center. She worked two or three days a week at the WTC; Sept. 11 was an off-day for her.

In her mid-20s, she had a 10-month-old son whom she was bathing that morning and two-year-old twin girls who were innocently playing when the plane struck the tower.

Speaking to her in person the next day, she was still trembling from the ordeal. She said she quickly dressed her young family and fled downstairs to join throngs of people racing down the street away from the chaos.

She was holding the baby and held one of her daughters by the hand. The other daughter clung to her skirt, she said.

As she ran, she looked down and the daughter who had clung to her skirt had disappeared.

Sandy said she became hysterical. She couldn’t go back because of the onrush of hundreds of people running and screaming.

But in the midst of this chaos, a miracle happened — little Ava was found by her uncle who worked on Wall Street and knew his sister Sandy would need help. As he made his way to her building, he found his niece wondering in the midst.

He scooped her up and was able to find his sister later in the day down at the East River where survivors had congregated.

And then there were tragedies of close friends who lost three young people in their 20s to the disaster at the World Trade Center.

A cousin’s daughter’s friend had just become engaged. She didn’t work at the WTC, but had a meeting there that morning. She didn’t make it out. Her name was Dominique.

The son of a former teaching colleague who also attended that meeting; he didn’t make it out, either.

Then there was the nephew of my first boyfriend. He and his secretary were fleeing their office on one of the higher tower floors when the phone rang. His secretary fled, but Norman stayed to answer the phone. He didn’t make it out.

His wife gave birth to their first child as a widow a few months later.

For weeks following, people from the New York metropolitan area came to Manchester as a getaway. One couple told me they had been to funerals of six friends.

They said their lives were changed forever — as were those of hundreds of other young, innocent people in the World Trade Center and on those fateful planes.

Oddly, Manchester was a safe refuge where families of diplomats were sent during World War II.

The hotel overlooking the Equinox Valley where families stayed then is now an inn and restaurant; it housed residents from New York after Sept. 11.

Ellen Sussman is a freelance writer in Green Valley. Contact her at ellen2414@cox.net.