Sunshine prevailed at Evanston’s Patriot Day Remembrance Ceremony on Sept. 11 at Firefighter’s Park, causing several who experienced 9/11 to recall the weather on that Tuesday morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
Matthew Smith, Evanston Fire Department division chief, who opened the program and participated in the “Thoughts of Honor and Remembrance” portion of the program, told the audience of personally being on the East Coast on, “a beautiful, sunny 70 degree morning,” on Sept. 11, 2001, “eerily similar to what we have here today.”
Soloist Rodney Greene of Evanston sang the national anthem at Wednesday’s ceremony at the park, at Simpson Street and Maple Avenue.
Illinois State Senator Laura Fine of Glenview told the audience, “When I woke up this morning and I saw the sun, I remember 23 years ago waking up on a beautiful fall day and in Chicago, the sun was shining, I was getting my kids ready for preschool at the time, and then our lives changed forever.”
Evanston’s ceremony annually honors those who perished due to the events of Sept. 11, 2001 in New York City, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. People who died due to cancer, lung conditions or diagnoses related to being at the 9/11 events are also remembered.
The approximately one hour ceremony began shortly after 7:30 a.m. with the Evanston Police and Fire Honor Guard posting the colors.
The program featured the bell ceremony, Evanston dispatch tone out and a moment of silence.
“We gather in solemn remembrance of the tragic events that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, a day that forever changed our nation and the world,” Smith said.
“It has been 23 years since that fateful morning yet the memories of that day are seared into our hearts, the moment we first saw those towers fall, the Pentagon on fire and the moment we first heard that Flight 93 had tragically crashed in Pennsylvania.
“The loss was staggering that day; nearly 3,000 innocent lives lost,” Smith said.
Also speaking was Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss.
“Those of us who were adults in 2001 really will never forget the way that day felt, the anguish and the fear and the frantic calling, the fact that many of the phone systems weren’t working,” Biss said. “So if you had a loved one in New York or Washington, you didn’t know for a long time if they were safe.”
Biss was in graduate school then in Boston, Massachusetts at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and had a brother living in New York plus many friends residing on the Eastern seaboard.
For those with loved ones unaccounted for, “We didn’t know, not just for minutes or hours but for days,” Biss recalled. “I don’t think we’re going to, as individuals, forget that. I hope we won’t.”
“But,” Biss said, “you’re absolutely right, Mark, there’s not a kid at the high school who was even born in September of 2001.”
Biss was addressing previous speaker Mark Shore, of the Evanston Township High School Class of 1982.
Shore moved to New York City in 1998 and was working for Morgan Stanley in an office on the 62nd floor of Tower 2 of the World Trade Center on 9/11.
“I was there when it happened and with my colleagues, going down the stairs for 62 stories and finally, I got out,” Shore said.
“I consider myself very lucky that I did survive.”
For our youth and for future generations, “We need to continue to tell the story,” Shore said.
“It’s very important.”
Sounding “Taps” on trumpet was Xander Senechal of Evanston, 18, of the Evanston Township High School Class of 2024 and a Northwestern University freshman who performs in Northwestern’s Wildcats marching band.
Senechal was born in 2006.
“I obviously don’t have the same connection to the day that people who were alive and can remember do, but that doesn’t change the fact that the lessons that were learned from that day are so important, like many of the speakers talked about, of unity and working together to make the world better,” Senechal said.
“It’s important to keep the legacy of it alive even though I wasn’t alive during the actual attacks to witness the tragedy.”
Senechal said it was his first time playing “Taps” to a public audience to conclude an official ceremony.
“My parents both have 9/11 stories. They lived in New York during 9/11, and it’s very special to be able to come and honor those who gave and lost their lives,” Senechal said.
Shortly after the ceremony ended, Senechal described a trumpeter’s thoughts during that sounding of “Taps.”
“I was thinking of funerals of family members,” Senechal recalled. “My great grandfather served in World War II and he had a military send-off funeral, and trying to put that personal connection into my playing was something that was important for me to do.”
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