Elliott: Remembering 9/11

Originally published Wed Sept., 12 2001

By Bob Elliott
Wallace Johnson always had fond memories of New York. And why not?

As a September callup in 1981, his eighth-inning, two-run triple off New York Mets closer Neil Allen put the Montreal Expos into the playoffs for the only time.

That all changed yesterday, as twin terror struck the World Trade Center, within two miles of where Johnson and the Chicago White Sox were.

Now the third-base coach of the Sox, Johnson was awakened in his Manhattan hotel room by a phone call shortly before 10 a.m. yesterday.

“We flew from Cleveland to Newark after Monday’s game and bused into the city about 2:30 a.m.,” Johnson said. “The streets weren’t busy, usually Manhattan is bustling even at 3 a.m.

“I went right to bed and the next thing I knew, a phone call woke me up.”

Nardi Contreras, the Sox pitching coach, was on the other end of the phone.

“Have you heard?” Contreras asked.

“Heard what?” Johnson asked.

“Turn on your TV, terrorists attacked,” Contreras said.

Johnson recalled what happened after he replaced the receiver yesterday. He laid on the bed trying to collect his thoughts and gather his senses. Then, he sleepily turned on CNN, watched for a while and phoned his mother back home in Indiana.

“I’m okay, don’t worry,” Johnson told mom, like a good son.

“Mom was worried, but my older sister, Phyllis, who lives in Dallas, hit the nail right on the head. She said ‘Oh Mom, don’t worry, Wallace will be in bed sleeping.’ Phyllis was right.”

Johnson then dressed and headed to the lobby.

“We had a discussion in the lobby, about 12 players and a few coaches, with guys sharing their thoughts,” Johnson said. “Gary Glover (ex-Blue Jays reliever) had talked to his brother, a Navy SEAL.”

Players often wear “No Fear” T-shirts under their uniform tops, and to be a success pitchers explain mentally they have to feel bulletproof to be successful. Many of those feelings dissipated yesterday.

“I looked into the faces of our some of our young pitchers, I don’t think they fully understood how the day’s actions will affect the world we live in,” Johnson, 44, said. “I’m not saying I’m any smarter, but I’ve lived longer and it won’t be years from now until they understand the severity of what happened Sept. 11, 2001.”

Johnson is smarter than your average ex-big leaguer. He graduated from the University of Indiana with a degree in accounting and is one of the bright young minds in the coaching fraternity.

“Some of the coaches were out walking early and they saw the dust from downtown, guys were talking about that,” Johnson said.

The Sox then waited to see what action baseball would take with last night’s game. Commissioner Bud Selig cancelled the Sox game against the New York Yankees, along with 14 other scheduled games.

“When we got in we were thinking about Tuesday and how we hoped to stop Roger Clemens from winning his 20th,” Johnson said. “Now ... well, the game doesn’t seem all that important.

“We didn’t go anywhere near the Trade Center, but walking around near the hotel I didn’t see panic in people’s faces. I did see a lot of people with blank looks on their faces, like being in a movie.”

Except it was real life. Real life and death only 60 blocks away.

“This shows that no one can’t be touched,” Johnson said. “And it puts everything in its proper place and perspective. To come in for a ball game and wake up two miles away from this ... this will be like the day president Kennedy was shot. Everyone will remember where they were, what they were doing.

“I know I’ll remember where I was.”

Johnson had 145 hits as a big-leaguer, playing parts of nine seasons with the Expos and the San Francisco Giants. None were more important than when Expos manager Jim Fanning sent him up to pinch-hit on the second last day of the season.

The triple to right centre at Shea Stadium scored Rodney Scott and Jerry Manuel, now the Sox manager.

“When I think of New York five years from now, I’ll think of what I saw on the streets and the TV (yesterday),” Johnson said. “When I think of New York fondly, I’ll have to go back 20 years to the triple.”

The Canadians Who Died In 9/11: List Of Victims Of The September 11 Terrorist Attacks
By The Canadian Press

The Sept. 11 attacks killed 26 Canadians. Here is a brief look at each one.

Michael Arczynski — The 45-year-old sports enthusiast from Vancouver was a senior vice-president of Aon Corp.’s Manhattan office. He and his wife, Lori, who was raised in Montreal, had three children after their marriage in 1990. Lori gave birth to a fourth child, named for his late father, after the attack. Arczynski, who loved to ski near Vancouver and spent a lot of time with family in Vermont, also left behind three daughters from his first marriage.

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Garnet (Ace) Bailey — The 53-year-old director of pro scouting for the National Hockey League’s Los Angeles Kings was a native of Lloydminster, Sask. He was aboard United Airlines Flight 175 when it crashed into the World Trade Center’s south tower. He was a veteran of 11 NHL seasons as a player with the Boston Bruins, the Detroit Red Wings, the St. Louis Blues and the Washington Capitals. He moved to the World Hockey Association for the 1978-79 season and joined the Edmonton Oilers where he was a linemate of teenage phenomenon Wayne Gretzky. Bailey ended his playing career in 1980 after he accumulated seven Stanley Cup rings and turned to coaching. He is survived by his wife, Katherine, and son, Todd. Katherine has started the Ace Bailey Children’s Fund, which supports play centres and programs at the Tufts New England Medical Center in Boston.

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David Barkway — The 34-year-old executive with BMO Nesbitt Burns in Toronto was in the office of Cantor Fitzgerald on the 105th floor of the north tower. He sent an electronic message to his Toronto colleagues, saying, “We need help ... This is not a joke.’’ Barkway was in New York with his wife, Cindy, for a three-day business trip just days after celebrating his birthday. After his death, the avid golfer nicknamed Barky was remembered by friends in Toronto as a bright and thoughtful leader who loved fine cigars, high-tech stereos and trips to the cottage. The couple has two young sons, one who was born in January 2002 and named David after his father. The David Barkway Memorial Scholarship in Economics was set up by the Department of Economics at Carleton University to honour his memory and life and is awarded to a high-achieving fourth year economics student.

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Ken Basnicki — The 48-year-old father of two was in the north tower attending a conference for BEA Systems, the software firm he worked for in Toronto. He was last heard from at 8:55 a.m. in a cellphone call to his mother from an office on the 106th floor. His wife, Maureen, a former flight attendant grounded in Germany at the time, said he had a boundless passion for golf, skiing, snowboarding and his Harley Davidson motorcycle. In the five years since her husband’s death, Maureen has started the Canadian Coalition Against Terror and is lobbying for legislation that would allow Canadians to sue countries or groups that support terrorism.

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Jane Beatty — A native of Britain, Beatty, 53, lived in Ontario for more than 20 years before moving to the United States to work as a technical supervisor at Marsh and McLennan Cos. Inc. in the World Trade Center’s north tower. She worked on the 96th floor of the north tower and phoned her husband Bob just before the plane hit. Three weeks before she died, she celebrated her fifth anniversary of surviving breast cancer. She had two grown sons.

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Joseph Collison — Collison was born in Toronto in 1951 and moved to New York City more than 15 years ago. He was on the 102nd floor of the north tower, where he worked in the mail room of Kidder, Peabody & Co., according to his sister-in-law, Janet Collison. He was buried in Mississauga next to his parents. At the time of his death, Collison, who was not married, was hoping to adopt a young boy in New York whom he cared for.

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Cynthia Connolly — Connolly, 40, transferred from insurance firm Aon Corp.’s Montreal offices to New York in 1999. She and her husband, Donald Poissant, married in 1998 and lived in Metuchen, N.J., with their Airedale-German shepherd, Shadow, and pet cat, Obi. People in her neighbourhood fondly remembered Connolly, four-foot-three, struggling to control her dog as they walked through the area. Her mother recalled her as “loving and caring,’’ always showing a soft spot for stray animals who she would bring home when she was a child.

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Arron Dack — The 39-year-old father of two was known to his family and friends for his ability to succeed in anything he tried. Dack was born in England, but moved to Canada with his parents in 1970. The senior executive with Encompys was attending a conference in the north tower of the World Trade Center when the first plane hit. He called his wife Abigail Carter and calmly asked her to call 911 since he thought a small bomb had gone off. Carter, who lived in New Jersey at the time but has since moved to Seattle, started two support groups for widows. He is survived by two children, Olivia and Carter.

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Frank Joseph Doyle — The 39-year-old Detroit native was married to Kimmy Chedel of St. Adele, Que. He was an American citizen whose parents were from the Ottawa valley, and he had a home in Canada. The executive vice-president of Keefe, Bruyette and Woods left two children, Zoe and Garrett. Doyle, a gifted athlete who did a triathlon the summer before he died, was living in New Jersey and working on the 89th floor of the second tower. “He said, ‘You have to promise me every day for the rest of their lives you’ll tell Zoe and Garrett how much I love them, and I didn’t realize that he was saying goodbye, he was just so brave and so strong,’” said Chedel. She created “Team Frank” in her husband’s honour — a collection of family and friends who participate in athletic events worldwide. Doyle’s friends from Bowdoin College also established a memorial scholarship in his name for outstanding athletes.

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Christine Egan — The 55-year-old Health Canada nurse epidemiologist from Winnipeg was visiting her younger brother’s office on the 105th floor in the second tower of the World Trade Center. Friends and family said the woman with a beaming smile was one of the most energetic, fun-loving people they knew. Egan was raised in England and moved to Canada in the late 60s. She taught at the University of Manitoba and received a PhD in community health services. Egan also had a love of Canada’s North, where she had practised as a nurse. A memorial scholarship was set up in her name at the University of Manitoba for promising Nunavut nursing students. Egan’s partner Ellen Judd said she was “good, generous person who was full of vitality.”

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Michael Egan — The 51-year-old lived in New Jersey and worked on the 105th floor of the World Trade Center at the insurance firm Aon Corp. The father of two boys moved to the New York area from Montreal in 1991 after immigrating to Canada to follow his sister Christine. She happened to be visiting him on Sept. 11 and was also killed in the attack. Michael spent much of his time introducing his son Matthew, who has Down syndrome, to various sports. His passion, his wife Anna has said, “was to make Matthew as happy as he could be.”

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Albert Elmarry — The 30-year-old moved from Toronto to the United States in 1999 to work in computer support for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 103rd floor of one of the towers. He had worked for IBM Canada when in Toronto. Elmarry, a devoutly religious man who started each day with a prayer, met his wife, Irinie, on a visit to his native Egypt. Irinie gave birth to a daughter nearly six months after her husband was killed.

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Meredith Ewart and Peter Feidelberg — The Montreal couple moved to the United States in 1997 and married in March 2000. One month before they died, they returned to Montreal for a second wedding reception with family and friends. Ewart, 29, and Feidelberg, 34, lived in Hoboken, N.J., and both had offices on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center’s south tower, where they worked at Aon Corp. At the time of the attacks, Meredith’s father, Robert Ewart, frantically called hospitals and the police in New York and at one point thought Feidelberg had survived based on a false Internet report. Friends remembered Feidelberg for his adventurous and competitive spirit, and his athletic interests, which included basketball, mountain biking, scuba diving and running the 1998 New York City Marathon. Friends and coworkers say Ewart shared her husband’s athletic pursuits and was always rife with stories of their outdoor adventures. They said they were in awe of Ewart’s beauty and intelligence.

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Alexander Filipov — Filipov, 70, was born in Regina and lived in Concord, Mass. He was on American Airlines Flight 11 when it hit the World Trade Center, just days before his 44th anniversary. An electrical engineer with three sons, Filipov became a U.S. citizen in 1962. His widow, Loretta, said he never slowed down, trying bungee jumping at age 60 and carrying on with his favourite pastimes — golf, skiing and music.

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Ralph Gerhardt — The 34-year-old vice-president with Cantor Fitzgerald called his parents in Toronto, just after the first plane hit the north tower. “Something just happened at the WTC. We either got hit by a bomb or plane. I am OK. We are OK. I love you, but I have to go now. We are evacuating. Call you later,’’ Gerhardt said in a message to his father, Hans. But no more calls came after his son said he was going to look for his girlfriend, who was also killed. His father described him as a very family-oriented man who was very close to his parents.

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Stuart Lee — Lee had returned a day before the attacks from his Korean homeland where he had taken his wife, Lynn Udbjorg, to show off his roots. He was vice-president of integrated services for DataSynapse, a technology company that serves the financial industry. The 30-year-old spent the last hour of his life e-mailing his company, trying to figure out how to get out of the building where he was attending a conference on the 106th floor. Lee, who grew up in Vancouver, loved travelling the globe with his wife, who described him as a romantic and someone known for his generosity to his friends and family.

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Mark Ludvigsen — The 32-year-old native of Rothesay, N.B., moved to the United States with his family at age seven. The avid rugby player graduated from Virginia’s College of William & Mary and worked as a bond broker at Keefe, Bruyette and Woods. He and his wife of three years, Maureen, lived in Manhattan. Ludvigsen was working on the 89th floor of the south tower, but managed to leave a message for his mother at 9 a.m. “Mother, now don’t you worry. I’m in the other tower. I’m fine and I’ll call you later,” he said.

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Bernard Mascarenhas — The 54-year-old native of Newmarket, Ont., worked for Marsh Canada, whose parent company, Marsh and McLennan Cos. Inc., had offices at the World Trade Center. The chief information officer for the company was on the 97th floor of the north tower as part of a five-day business trip to New York. Marsh had about 1,900 employees in the two towers; 295 were killed. Mascarenhas left behind his wife, Raynette, a son, Sven, and a daughter, Jaclyn.

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Colin McArthur — The 52-year-old Glasgow native moved to Toronto in 1977 to work as an insurance broker. He moved to Montreal in 1986 after marrying his wife, Brenda. McArthur became a Canadian citizen and worked as a deputy managing director at Aon Corp. The couple relocated to New York in 1997 where McArthur continued to work for the same company on the 104th floor of the South Tower. He was a keen golfer who loved the game, despite his dubious achievements on the course, according to his wife. She set up the Colin McArthur Postgraduate Scholarship at his alma mater, the University of Glasgow.

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Michael Pelletier — The 36-year-old commodities broker for TradeSpark, a division of trading firm Cantor Fitzgerald, was on the 105th floor of the north tower. He called his wife, Sophie, and told her he was trapped in the building and that he loved her. Pelletier’s Vancouver-based father refused to believe at first that his son, a strikingly handsome natural athlete who excelled at hockey, wouldn’t get out. “We were saying there’s gotta be a way, we know Mike, he’s a survivor, he’ll find some way out.” At the time of his death, he had a three-year-old daughter and one-year-old son.

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Donald Robson — A Toronto native, Robson, 52, had lived in the United States for 20 years. He was a partner and bond broker for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 103rd floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center. He and his wife, Kathy, had two sons, Geoff and Scott. He had been planning 24th wedding anniversary celebrations with his wife. “Then bang, it’s all over just like that,” she said from her Long Island home a year after the attacks. The friends Robson left behind described him as a “fun-loving guy who lit up every room that he entered.”

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Ruffino (Roy) Santos — Santos, 37, a native of Manila, moved to British Columbia with his family in the 1980s. He moved to New York in the late 1990s, where he worked for Guy Carpenter as a computer consultant. He was supposed to leave the 94th floor of the World Trade Center the week after he died to work for Accenture. His mother, Aurora, and her two other sons went to New York for the first anniversary. “I want to see Ground Zero to pray and bring some flowers and candles,” she said.

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Vladimir Tomasevic — A native of Yugoslavia, Tomasevic, 36, moved to Canada in 1994. He lived in Toronto with his wife, Tanja, and was vice-president of software development for Optus E-Business Solutions. He was on his first visit to New York and was attending a financial conference on 106th floor of World Trade Center’s north tower. “He was always there for anyone — that’s what we miss about him the most,” his wife has said. Tanja, who received a small amount of remains and a piece of shredded material from his pants, had urged the Canadian government to provide more support for the families of 9-11 victims.

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Chantal (Chanti) Vincelli — The 38-year-old former Montrealer worked as a marketing assistant at DataSynapse Inc. Vincelli moved to New York in the late 1990s and lived in Harlem with her cats. She was setting up a kiosk for a trade show on the 106th floor of the north tower. Her brother Anthony said the woman who dreamed of becoming a talk-show host “had charisma, she had wit.” The local grocer named her the Harlem Princess and the name stuck.

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Debbie Williams — Williams, 35, worked for international insurance company Aon Corp. for 15 years. She and her husband, Darren, moved to Hoboken, N.J., after being transferred to New York City by their employer. Williams, a Montreal native, gave birth to their only child six months after settling in Hoboken. A friend and neighbour set up the Debbie Williams Memorial Park Fund to install a new playground named after Williams at a Hudson County park.

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One other person has been identified as having very close ties to Canada.

LeRoy Homer — Homer, 36, was the co-pilot of United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania after being taken over by hijackers. Homer was an American citizen, but his wife Melodie was Canadian, having grown up in Hamilton. His family said Homer always wanted to be a pilot. He was just 15 when he started flight instruction in a Cessna 152. The couple, who lived in Marlton, N.J., have a young daughter. Homer served in the U.S. forces, serving in Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and later supporting operations in Somalia. He received many commendations during his military career. He joined United Airlines in May 1995 and received awards posthumously for his actions on board Flight 93. The LeRoy W. Homer Jr. Foundation was established to provide financial support and encouragement to young people who wish to pursue careers as professional pilots. It also promotes awareness about aviation careers to disadvantaged youth.