Honoring 9/11 Victims

Honoring 9/11 victims
By Walter F. Naedele
Inquirer Staff Writer

A 9/11 memorial in Lower Makefield, Bucks County, will be dedicated on Sept. 30 in a ceremony that is to begin in silence and end with the Rodgers and Hammerstein song "You'll Never Walk Alone."

The $1.4 million memorial, which is being constructed on township land at Woodside Road, near Lindenhurst Road, will commemorate those killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, including 17 people from Bucks County.

At the site yesterday, Ellen Saracini, widow of the pilot whose plane hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center, said: "We've taken a long journey, we've worked very hard.

"While the families thought they needed a place to go," she said of the memorial, "we realized from the community coming to us that we all needed a place to go."

The dedication of the Garden of Reflection is to start at 4 p.m. and consist of three sets in each of which a locally known speaker, will be followed by a song, followed by a speech by a relative of one of the Bucks County victims.

Scheduled to appear are U.S. Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick (R., Pa.), Lynn Doyle of cable channel CN8, and Michael Smerconish, a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News.

The family members scheduled to speak are Saracini, whose husband was United Airlines Capt. Victor Saracini; Grace Godshalk, whose son William worked on the 89th floor of the South Tower; and Tara Bane, whose husband, Michael, worked on the 100th floor of the North Tower.
The memorial, on a two-acre plot, will include a shallow pool that has been laid around twin fountains that will spout plumes of water 20 feet high.

On the edge of that pool, a railing will contain the names, etched in glass, of the Bucks County victims.

And at the edge of an outer walkway, a semi-circle railing will include the names of all 2,973 people killed in the 9/11 attacks.

At the dedication, the names of the 17 Bucks County victims will be read, each to the ring of a bell.

There will be a final ring, for all others who lost their lives in the attacks.

Then, an American flag that will be flown at the memorial will be presented.

Valerie Mihalek, coordinator of the dedication committee, said the flag was carried by an American Airlines plane, piloted by Capt. Stephen Verdi, who had special clearance to fly over the World Trade Center site last week after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport.

On Monday, she said, the same flag was carried in a military plane that Sam Irvin, a United Airlines first officer and major in the Air Force Reserve, flew out of McGuire Air Force Base and over the Pentagon before returning to New Jersey.

And during the week of Sept. 10, American Airlines Capt. Peter Maniscalco will take the flag on a private plane over the field in Shanksville, Pa., where the fourth plane crashed in a field.

If You Go
The Garden of Reflection, a memorial to the 9/11 victims, will be dedicated at 4 p.m. Sept. 30.
It is at Woodside Road, near Lindenhurst Road, in Lower Makefield Township, Bucks County.
The memorial has a shallow pool around twin fountains that will spout water 20 feet high.
Read about the development of the Garden of Reflection memorial via http://go.philly.com/reflection