Glenda Hall spent Sept. 11, 2001 and the week that followed working 12-hour shifts at a military base in Nova Scotia, feeding frightened Americans, finding them places to sleep and helping them call home.
Sally Turner watched the attacks unfold from her home in New York. Twenty-five years later, she happened to be in Niagara-on-the-Lake for the Shaw Festival.
Vincent A. Tummino was there when it happened.
The retired New York City firefighter responded to the World Trade Center attacks as part of the FDNY rescue and recovery effort, losing coworkers and a cousin, who was a retired NYPD sergeant, in the attacks.
Their stories came together Friday morning at Queen’s Royal Park, where Canadians and Americans gathered to mark 25 years since the Sept. 11 attacks and remember a day that changed lives on both sides of the border.
For Hall, now a NOTL resident, the memories begin at 12 Wing Shearwater in Halifax, N.S., which used to be called CFB Shearwater when it was part of the former city of Dartmouth.
She was at work when someone told staff to turn on the television. They watched the news, wondering how their lives were about to change. Hall went home that day, only to get a call telling her to return to the base.
Soon, buses carrying stranded Americans began arriving.
“We got busy right away setting up cots in the community centre,” Hall said.
Rooms were set aside for families, meals were prepared and the phone company installed banks of phones so people could reach their loved ones.
“People were holding on to us and asking us if we heard about this place, and did we hear about that place, ‘Because that’s where my daughter works,’” she said. “It was just emotional the whole time.”
Hall worked 12-hour shifts for about a week.
One stranded man saw Hall arrive for her shift each day and told her he did not want to see her face again, knowing how many long hours she had been working. Hall would tell him she did not want to see his face either — because she was hoping he had finally been sent home.
When Hall learned his flight had finally been booked, she wanted to be the one to tell him.
“I ran down to his room and I said, ‘You’re never going to have to look at this face again,’” she said. “He had tears in his eyes (and said), ‘I’m going home.’”
“Yes, you are.”
Asked Friday what it meant to have helped, Hall kept it simple.
“It was just something we did. We were in the military. You just jumped and went wherever they needed you.”
Turner carried a different memory into the park.
The New York resident was visiting NOTL for the Shaw Festival when she decided to attend Friday’s ceremony.
On Sept. 11, 2001, Turner was at home when she called her next-door neighbour, who told her something was happening. Turner turned on the television and watched the attacks unfold.
Her first reaction was “shock and disbelief.”
“I mean, we just didn’t believe this was really happening.”
She said the political climate in the United States made seeing Canadians gather to remember the attacks feel especially meaningful.
“It was almost a little embarrassing because of our president,” she said.
“We’ve been accepted. So I feel quite good about that.”
For Tummino, a firefighter of more than 36 years and U.S. Army veteran, there was no television separating him from the attack.
Before beginning his prepared remarks, Tummino looked around at the Canadian crowd.
“It’s amazing that I come all the way to Canada on today, and there’s probably cities back home where people are just going to work and not even celebrating this occasion,” he said.
He later told the crowd: “The story of 9/11 is not only an American story. It is a human story.”
Tummino remembered the Canadian communities that took in stranded travellers after U.S. airspace closed, including Gander, N.L., which received 38 diverted flights and sheltered nearly 7,000 passengers.
“Differences dissolved,” he said. “Compassion became our common language.”
That cross-border bond was at the centre of Friday’s ceremony.
For the first time, the Upward Niagara Chamber of Commerce from Lewiston formally joined the Niagara-on-the-Lake Chamber of Commerce and town for the commemoration.
Amanda Haseley, president of the American chamber, said she did not see “two separate communities divided by a river or an international border.”
“I see neighbours, I see friends, I see communities that have shared a connection for generations.”
She thanked NOTL for continuing to remember an attack that took place on American soil.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Haseley said. “And yet year after year, our Canadian neighbours have made the choice to remember with us.”
Terry Dow, interim executive director of the NOTL chamber, also recognized Janice Thomson, who began the local commemoration in 2002 but could not attend Friday.
“What began as Janice’s simple desire to stand alongside our American neighbours has become an annual tradition here in Niagara on the Lake,” Dow said.
Lord Mayor Gary Zalepa, and Couns. Erwin Wiens, Gary Burroughs and Tim Balasiuk were among the local officials in attendance.
Zalepa, who also read a message from Premier Doug Ford, said Canada and the United States may disagree at times.
“We may not agree on every issue, much like a family,” Zalepa said. “But the bond between our people is deeper than any single disagreement.”
Niagara Falls member of provincial Parliament Wayne Gates opened his remarks by thanking Legion members and veterans in attendance for their service.
He said NOTL continues gathering not only to remember those lost, but to “reaffirm our friendship between our communities and our two countries.”
Niagara Falls—Niagara-on-the-Lake member of Parliament Tony Baldinelli remembered the Canadians who served in Afghanistan after the attacks, saying more than 40,000 Canadian Armed Forces members were deployed and 158 Canadians died.
