From Beverly:
I worked at an embroidery business located on the edge of Davenport, Iowa. My mother-in-law and my youngest son also worked there. We were busy running machines and trimming garments when my 20 year old son arrived. He asked urgently, “Haven’t you heard?” I smiled at him he always made me smile, and asked what news. “A plan flew into the twin towers.’ At that moment I thought that a small plane had flight problems and had crashed into the towers & I couldn’t remember where or what the towers were.
“Was anyone hurt?” I could see he was frustrated by my answer and said that it was a passenger airplane and didn’t I know that was where the United Nations were in New York. We turned the radio on and listened in horror to the unfolding events. We continued to do our job but it was a solemn and surreal day. So many things were going through my mind, that we would soon be at war, I didn’t want to loose a son to war and that the economy would suffer, maybe I should grow a victory garden. I felt what could I do and I knew that the way we perceived our world would be changed.
Friday, September 9, 2011 I called my son to remind him to call his grandmother’s Sunday because it is Grandparent’s Day and to tell him that when I think of 911 I think of him and how he came into work without saying hello and told us the news.