The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland (22 page)

“Ay, that’s right, another round for the lovely princess.”

The Beatles, a Nigerian princess, and a ripe old cod. Ay, this would indeed be a night they would long remember.

Moldovan families leaving the Baptist church.
Courtesy of Gary House

A
fter driving all night, Roxanne and Clark Loper and Tera and Jason Saarista arrived with their children in Port aux Basques, around 3
A.M.
on Saturday. They checked into a pair of motel rooms for a couple of hours’ sleep and made it to the dock in time to catch the 8
A.M.
ferry.

Overnight. Hurricane Erin had made one last turn and was heading out to sea. By morning it was clear that the storm would only graze the eastern tip of Newfoundland, leaving the ferry open for business. The residual effects of the storm, however, made for a rough ride. The ferry pitched and swayed in the choppy waters between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Tera, who was five months pregnant, spent most of the six-hour voyage throwing up. And in the cafeteria, the children had to hold on to their trays while they ate to keep them from sliding off the table.

The flu symptoms Roxanne had been feeling the day before were only getting worse, and once they landed in Sydney, Nova Scotia, they still had a long drive to the U.S. border. At Roxanne’s insistence, they ventured along the scenic Highway 6, which winds along Nova Scotia’s north shore and would give them a chance to glimpse Prince Edward Island from across the Northumberland Strait.

Ever since reading Lucy Maud Montgomery’s
Anne of Green Gables
, Roxanne had wanted to visit Prince Edward Island. The international bestseller, about a plucky orphan and her adventures living on the island, described in loving detail the beauty of the land and the people. The book, and its subsequent sequels, had touched Roxanne, and now that she was with her own adopted daughter, she didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to spy Prince Edward Island, even if it was from across the strait.

Saturday night they stopped in the New Brunswick town of St. John, checking into a sleazy motel near the airport, where they’d return the rental van. They were now just fifty miles from the border.

G
et up! You’re going home!” Barry Bragg was pounding on doors throughout his house, trying to wake his guests, Peter Ferris, Jessica Naish, and Paul Moroney. When the Trailways Pub had finally closed, the three went back to the Bragg home. Everyone was still excited from the night at the pub, and when the Braggs produced a couple of guitars, they all ended up singing songs until it was light outside.

They had been asleep only a couple of hours when the call came to the Bragg house that Continental Flight 5 had been cleared to go. The three of them had to get to the church immediately, as the buses were ready to leave for the airport.

Deb Farrar, Lana Etherington, Winnie House, Bill Cash, and Mark Cohen were already at the church waiting. They were all feeling a bit groggy. It was definitely time for this unanticipated vacation to come to an end, especially after the wild night at the pub. They had hoped to make a big spaghetti dinner that night at George and Edna Neal’s house, but when the call came to report to the church, they put the food away.

As the buses waited for Naish and the Beatle Boys to arrive, Deb and Greg, who was on Delta Flight 117, said their good-byes. They had struck up a convenient romance during their days in Gambo, spending almost all of their time together. Neither, however, was sure whether it would continue when they got back to the States. Deb lived in Texas, Greg in North Carolina. Their whole time together felt like an episode of one of those shows on MTV—
The Real World
or
Road Rules
—where a whole gamut of feelings, emotions, and experiences are compressed into a frenzied period. They would need a little space and perspective to make sense of it all.

If nothing else, their time together had been a welcome relief from having to think about what was happening back home. They traded phone numbers and addresses. They kissed farewell and off Deb and the others went. In a few hours Continental Flight 5 would be back in Houston, and by Monday, Deb would be back at her job.

S
omething was definitely wrong with Ralph, the purebred cocker spaniel puppy on his way from Germany to Dallas. Bonnie Harris saw it and so did Linda Humby when they came by Saturday morning to take care of the animals that were still waiting for flights home. The little guy wasn’t hungry. He had trouble standing and he appeared listless. Not wanting to take any chances, they called Doc Tweedie.

Examining Ralph for himself, the vet noticed that the pup’s hind legs were sensitive and he appeared to be in pain. Tweedie wanted to run a full battery of tests, something he couldn’t do at the hangar. He needed to take Ralph to his clinic. He knew, though, that the dog wasn’t allowed outside of the hangar, much less off the grounds of the airport.

With the finesse of a cat burglar, Tweedie stashed Ralph in his car and smuggled him out of the airport. After going over him from nose to tail at his clinic and taking X rays of his hindquarters, the vet could find nothing seriously wrong. He was just sore and a little bruised, as if he’d fallen or been accidentally dropped. Tweedie, Harris, and Humby eventually figured out what was happening. It seemed that Ralph’s popularity hadn’t been limited to the daytime. Employees from the graveyard shift at the airport also loved playing with the puppy, keeping him up all night and letting him run around outside of his cage as much as he wanted.

Ralph wasn’t hurt. He was simply exhausted. All he needed was some rest. Harris and Humby put out the word around the airport: no more keeping Ralph up all night. He was a growing dog and he needed his sleep.

T
he buses arrived at the Baptist church about 7
P.M.
to take Olesya Buntylo and the other Moldovan families to the airport for Delta Flight 141. Olesya cried as she said good-bye to Clark Piercey, who had been with them every day since they arrived. As far as the Moldovans were concerned, Piercey was a part of their family now. And leaving him behind was every bit as painful as it had been to leave family members behind in Eastern Europe. When the buses pulled away from the church, Olesya watched all of the Baptists waving good-bye. God will bless them for everything they have done, she thought to herself.

Delta Flight 141 was originally scheduled to fly from Amsterdam to New York and land at Kennedy International Airport on September 11. Now, however, rather than having it fly to New York, Delta officials decided the plane should fly to their home base in Atlanta. When the thirty-eight Moldovans arrived at the airport, they discovered their entry papers into the United States allowed them to come into the country only through New York. Canadian immigration officials told them they would have to remain in Canada for the time being, or risk being detained at a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization detention center in Atlanta while their paperwork was investigated. The Moldovans decided to stay in Gander.

Late that night, Piercey received a phone call from Olesya telling him that she and the others were still in Gander. Immigration officials were taking them to the Sinbad Hotel until they could arrange a flight to New York. Piercey was sorry their trip had been delayed, but he was also glad to have a chance to see them all again. In the morning he went down to the hotel to make sure they were okay. He kept them company. Helped them get around town. And checked in on them every day until new flights could be arranged. just like any good member of the family.

H
annah and Dennis O’Rourke left Dublin early Saturday afternoon. They weren’t on the first plane out, as promised, but they did make it onto the second. When their plane landed in New York, their children Patricia O’Keefe and Dennis O’Rourke were waiting to pick them up. Hannah rushed toward them. After all those hours on the plane, she thought they might have new information about Kevin. And if her fears were right, and the family was holding back information from her, they would tell her now. “There’s still no news, Ma,” Patricia told her.

At least there was still hope, Hannah thought. They drove to Kevin’s home in Hewlett, Long Island, and as the car pulled into the driveway, everyone inside the house came spilling out, including Kevin’s wife, Maryann. Everyone was crying and hugging and holding on to each other. After the horrors of the past week, Hannah and Dennis’s return home gave everyone a chance to release some of their bottled-up emotions. Now, whatever happened, they would face it together. And they would get through it as a family.

R
abbi Sudak returned to Lakewood Academy on Saturday. By now the passengers from the last plane in Glenwood were on their way to the airport. Since Rabbi Sudak and Baila Hecht and her daughter, Esther, felt comfortable at the school, Lakewood officials decided to keep the shelter open on Saturday, even if it was just for three people.

For the first time in days the school was quiet. Eithne Smith, the teacher who had helped arrange to have kosher meals brought to the school back on Wednesday, was sitting with Rabbi Sudak in the school office when the fax machine started to hum. Smith retrieved the message. It was from one of the passengers, Werner Kolb, an alumni of Northwest Flight 61, originally scheduled to fly directly from Amsterdam to New York. Kolb had just made it home to the Netherlands and decided to send a note of thanks to everyone at the school for taking care of him.

“It is not possible for me to tell you how I felt during my stay with you,” he wrote. “Only once was I treated in a similar way. This was when I was a child. I was liberated in Holland in 1945. You wonderful Canadians have not changed.”

Smith could feel her hands shake as she read the note. After four long days, she was exhausted, and Kolb’s note filled her with emotion. She started to cry and Rabbi Sudak spoke to her in comforting tones. He told her that the generosity she and others at the school had showed would be remembered and celebrated for a very long time. Their actions were more than just taking in passengers whose flights had been delayed. The Newfoundlanders had provided a caring haven for hundreds of people at a moment when they were scared and far from home. They were made to feel safe and secure when the world around them seemed anything but.

Smith wanted to hug him, to place her arms around him and squeeze and share his strength, but she remembered that this was forbidden, so she just thanked him.

In the afternoon, a man from Gander came to visit the rabbi. He was at least seventy years old and partially blind from cataracts. He moved stiffly and his health was poor. His name was Eddie Brake.

Although he had lived in Gander for forty years and was a well-known salesman around town, very few people knew he was Jewish. It was a secret he’d kept for a very long time. Even his wife, whom he had been married to for forty-five years, discovered his true religious faith only ten years before when he finally broke down and told her. They had raised seven children, all Catholic like their mother.

The person now known as Ed Brake had been born in Poland in 1929 or 1930, he wasn’t sure which. He didn’t know the name his parents gave him at birth or, for that matter, his family name. He knew only they were Jewish, and prior to the start of World War II, they had paid to have him smuggled out of Poland and taken to England. Before leaving, Brake remembered being attacked and beaten, and his family living under a constant threat of abuse because they were Jewish.

When he left Poland he was only seven or eight years old. He was adopted by a family in England who moved to Newfoundland in 1936. He grew up in Corner Brook, a bay town on the western edge of the island, and was told never to tell anyone that his birth parents were Jews. Any time he asked questions about being Jewish, his stepparents became enraged, even violent toward him. And so began his secret life as a Jew.

The appearance of Rabbi Sudak stirred up old feelings for Brake. After arriving at Lakewood Academy on Wednesday, the rabbi had asked if there were any Jews in the area, and if so, he would like to meet them. Although hardly anyone knew of Brake’s past, one of the people visiting the rabbi told him a little about Brake. The rabbi was eager to meet him.

Brake was scared when he was called and told about the rabbi’s wish. He knew his family didn’t like it when he discussed his past, and they were still somewhat resentful that he had hidden so much from them for so long. Brake, however, felt the need to go. “It’s time,” he said to himself. Since he’d come to Newfoundland as a boy in 1936, he has never entered a synagogue or spoken to a rabbi.

On the way to Lakewood, he thought about what he would say and how much he would share. Inside the faculty lounge, sitting around a table with the rabbi and Baila Hecht and a few teachers, he found it all came spilling out. Although he wasn’t certain, he believed his parents and his siblings had been rounded up by the Nazis after the invasion of Poland and taken to the camps, where they died. Brake lowered his head and asked the rabbi to pass his fingers over the back of his skull. The rabbi could feel the dents and depressions Brake said were the result of beatings he suffered at the hands of the police in Poland before his parents sent him away. He had other reminders as well, scars on his back and on his feet. He took off his shoes so the rabbi could see.