The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland (25 page)

One rumor that did turn out to be true: the wife and children of actor Woody Harrelson were stranded in Gander on their way home from a vacation in Europe. The star of
The People vs. Larry Flynt. Natural Born Killers
, and
Kingpin
wasn’t with his family, but was able to talk to them by phone. The Harrelson family spent their time quietly in Gander and then went home with everyone else when their flight was cleared to leave.

One Hollywood personality who was in Gander was actress Marisa Berenson, one of the world’s first supermodels, who’d made her screen debut in
Death in Venice
in 1970 and won critical acclaim for her role in 1972’s
Cabaret
, in which she played Natalie Landauer, the Jewish department-store heiress who is given English lessons by Liza Minnelli’s character and then comes to her later for sexual advice. In 1975, she starred as Ryan O’Neal’s wife in
Barry Lyndon
, the Stanley Kubrick visual masterpiece set in eighteenth-century Ireland.

Less than a month before her plane was diverted to Gander, a story about Berenson and her sister, Berry, was featured in
The New York Times Sunday Magazine
. The magazine noted that Yves Saint Laurent had dubbed Marisa “the girl of the seventies,” and
Elle
magazine crowned her “the most beautiful girl in the world.” In recent years she had continued to act, appearing recently in a play on Broadway.

By a cruel coincidence, while Marisa was flying from Paris to New York on September 11, her sister was on one of the planes taken over by the hijackers. Berry Berenson, a well-known photographer and the widow of actor Anthony Perkins, was aboard American Airlines Flight 11, en route from Boston to Los Angeles, when it crashed into the North Tower of the Trade Center.

The two sisters had been extremely close since their childhood. Their grandmother was Elsa Schiaparelli, the famed couturiere whose use of shocking pink electrified the fashion world. Their great-uncle was the art historian Bernard Berenson. As children, they were taught to dance by Gene Kelly and developed a sense of style under the tutelage of Diana Vreeland, the legendary editor in chief of
Vogue
magazine. As adults, they were part of the international jet set, had been regulars at Studio 54, and counted Andy Warhol and Diane von Furstenberg as their friends.

“I’m not complaining,” Marisa had told the
Times
, “but everyone has their pain and tragedies in life—it doesn’t matter how famous or blessed you are.”

S
ix weeks after leaving Lewisporte, Rockefeller Foundation vice-president Denise Gray-Felder still hadn’t heard from either Lewisporte Middle School principal Pam Coish about their offer to furnish the school with new computers or from Pastor Russell Bartlett about a grant to the church. Neither of them, it turned out, wanted to seem pushy. By not calling, they were giving the foundation a chance to reconsider their pledge.

Gray-Felder asked if Coish had made a decision about the computers. Did the school need something else? Coish said the computers would be a wonderful gift. Initially the school had asked for less than $35,000 to replace the thirty-five computers. Gray-Felder realized school officials didn’t want to appear greedy or to be taking advantage of the foundation. She summarily rejected the number as being too low. She wanted to make sure the kids had top-of-the-line computers. The school finally agreed to accept a total grant of $52,500, which came to $1,500 a computer.

Pastor Bartlett was equally circumspect. After hemming and hawing, he finally agreed to accept a grant of $15,000, which went into a fund to help people in need.

The people from the Rockefeller Foundation weren’t the only ones who offered donations to their hosts. In nearly all of the shelters, passengers passed the hat, often generating several thousand dollars in cash, which they gave to the group or school that had taken them in. One passenger pledged to replace the roof on one of the local churches, while others wrote checks directly to the Canadian Red Cross, the Salvation Army, or one of the town governments, as a sign of appreciation.

The most ambitious fund-raising effort was taken up by the passengers of Delta Flight 15, who stayed in the town of Lewisporte. While they were flying to Atlanta from Newfoundland, a small group of passengers talked about how they wished there was something they could do to thank everyone. They realized Newfoundland was going through tough economic times, and towns such as Lewisporte had been particularly hard hit.

One of the passengers, a Dr. Robert Ferguson from North Carolina, had the idea of creating a college scholarship fund, which could select a deserving student every year. Others thought it was a great idea, and before long another passenger, Shirley Brooks, convinced the flight crew to let her get on the plane’s public-address system to announce the idea to the 217 other people on board. Pledge sheets were quickly passed around. And by the time the plane reached Atlanta, more than $15,000 was pledged for the fund. Today, the group has its own Web site—www.deltaflight15.org—and the money collected is being overseen by a well-respected charitable foundation in the United States. The fund, known officially as the Gander Flight 15 Scholarship Fund, was preparing to announce its first scholarship recipient in Lewisporte as this book was going to press during the summer of 2002.

F
or Clark and Roxanne Loper and their adopted daughter Alexandria, the final leg of the long journey home was not without problems. After they had stopped in Tennessee on Monday night, Roxanne’s flu had progressed to the point where she was having trouble breathing. A pediatric nurse by profession, she knew she needed to see a doctor. Early Tuesday morning she went to the emergency room of the local hospital, where doctors told her what she already feared—her flu had turned into pneumonia.

Roxanne didn’t want to stop. They were so close to their home in Alto, Texas. She just wanted to get there and have this entire trip be over. She missed her house with the brown tin roof. She missed her ranch with the horses and the chickens and the dogs. She missed seeing her parents. She missed being alone with her husband and sleeping in her own bed. And most of all she missed holding her other daughter, Samantha, whom they had adopted a year earlier.

Rather than admit Roxanne into the hospital, the doctors filled her full of antibiotics and let her go. On Wednesday, the Lopers crossed into Texas. Their first stop was Clark’s parents’ house in Tyler. A banner welcoming them back greeted them when they arrived. Roxanne’s mother pulled up thirty minutes later with Samantha. The two-year-old had grown so much since they had left that Roxanne started to cry. Although both sets of parents were anxious to hear about their adventure, Roxanne wanted to leave. There would be plenty of time to catch up later. Since picking up Alexandria in Kazakhstan, they had traveled nearly 8,000 miles by plane, ferry, and automobile, and now the only thing that separated them from their home was a fifty-two-mile drive down U.S. Highway 69 from Tyler to Alto. They raced down that last patch of roadway, and with each passing mile marker, Roxanne’s spirits lifted. They pulled into the driveway and, like kids running down the stairs on Christmas morning, couldn’t wait to get through the door. It was quiet and peaceful, and they were all together, safe and sound, a new family, a complete family. Walking through the entrance, Roxanne said the only thing that made sense in that moment, two words she’d waited more than a week to say: “We’re home.”

T
his book was the idea of Judith Regan, who saw the wonder of this story long before anyone else. I am grateful that she offered me, a relatively unknown writer embarking upon his first book, the opportunity to tackle this project. I’m also indebted to everyone else at ReganBooks and HarperCollins for their assistance, especially Conor Risch, whom I made sweat through several deadlines and whose suggestions made this a better read.

Ultimately, though, the people most responsible for this book are the passengers and townspeople who so generously allowed me into their lives and trusted me to tell their story faithfully. In the course of researching this book, I contacted approximately 180 people, and only one declined to be interviewed. It would be impossible for me to list everyone, so I won’t even try. Many brought me into their homes, fed me, and in one case, even tried to take me ice fishing. There are a few, however, whose aid I would like to recognize: Betsy Saunders, from the town government in Gander, who helped me get my bearings when I first arrived in town. Karen Mills and her staff at the Comfort Inn, who not only put up with me for more than a month, but became my de facto secreterial pool. And Professor Pat Byrne, of Memorial University in St. John’s, for the afternoon we spent talking about Newfoundland’s past, including the history of the so-called Screeching-In ceremony. The description of this in chapter 17 was drawn from these conversations as well as from an article the professor wrote called “Booze, Ritual, and the Invention of Tradition: The Phenomenon of the Newfoundland Screech-In.”

Finally, I need to acknowledge the help of my friends and family, particularly Anne Windishar and Jess Walter, whose friendship and support I will always treasure; my sister, Daria, and her husband, Tommy, who are my biggest boosters; my nephews, Connor and Chris, who give me joy; and my mother, Joanne, who makes me want to do my best.

Cover design by D. L. Taylor

Cover photograph by Paul Banks

Map by Maps.com/Corbis