By Mike Schnitzel
Joan York lost her husband, Raymond, that day. He was a 20-year veteran of the New York City Fire Department, based at Engine Company 285 in Ozone Park. They had moved to Valley Stream in 1997 with their four children.
Sept. 11 began like any other day for the Yorks, according to Joan. "It was a typical day," she recalled. "I dropped him off at the train station and he went to work."
Raymond had been on light duty since 1999, when he injured both of his shoulders. He had been teaching children fire safety while recovering from shoulder surgery, so Joan no longer worried about her husband's safety. "He was at a point in his life where he was thinking of retiring," she said. "We were at a point in our lives where I wasn¹t worried about him, but he would never not have gone² to help out at the World Trade Center.
When news broke of a fire there, Raymond headed straight for the scene to offer any assistance he could. Joan went to her job that day as an import broker on Fifth Street in Valley Stream, knowing about the fire but not knowing her husband's whereabouts. "I called him ... but I couldn't get him," she recounted. "At work, I watched as everything was unfolding and I wondered, What am I doing here? I never thought he would be there, but I kind of knew in my gut that he would go."
Joan went the whole night of Sept. 11 without hearing from her husband, hoping that he would be all right and trying to glean any information she could despite the massive communications breakdown at the scene. At 5 the next morning, she spoke to a fire official who told her that Raymond was not on the list of responders. It wasn't until the following day that she received a call notifying her that her husband was dead.
"I was told that he was at the command post just after the first tower fell," Joan said. "He died when the north tower fell, while trying to alert people to evacuate."
She said she doesn't like to watch footage of the north tower falling because she knows that was the moment her life changed forever. She was now a widow who had to raise four children who ranged in age from 8 to 14 at the time. "I can't say there really is a way to deal with it," York said. "You spend a lot of time trying, and thinking. Here you have someone you love more than anything in the world who is gone because of violence and hatred. You have to take little steps."
She said that the glare of publicity surrounding the attacks made it harder for her family to heal. She explained that her priority is her children, and making sure people remember her husband for who he was, not for what happened to him. "I try not to focus on September 11th," York said, "but rather on our lives. September 11th was a very small part of what Ray was. His thing was helping other people."
Thelma Stuart is a former Valley Stream resident whose life was forever altered by the attacks. Her husband, Walwyn, was a Port Authority police officer who was killed that day. Prior to his tenure with the P.A., Stuart was an NYPD narcotics detective.
"He wanted a safer job when our daughter was born," said Thelma, who has since relocated. "I guess it wasn't that safe a job."
Thelma and her daughter Amanda, who is about to turn 6, try to remember the husband and father who they lost that day. "She loves to send him balloons," said Thelma. "We used to go to this store called Ryan's on Merrick Road, which isn't there anymore, and we would get balloons and send them up to her father."
Sometimes when Amanda is too upset to release balloons into the sky for her father, she and her mother make scrapbooks to remember him. One book is dedicated to Amanda's feelings about what happened, and another is dedicated to the memory of her father and his history. "It's a chronicle of his life," Thelma said.
She takes things one day at a time, and her faith helps her persevere. "The most difficult moments have been with [Amanda] asking me questions or wanting her dad to teach her to ride a bike or to play chess with her, which was his favorite pastime," Thelma said. "I go back to my faith and say a prayer and ask God to give me strength in my heart."
Stuart also did work for Tuesday's Children, a program established in the wake of the tragedy to help children who were affected live normal lives and provide them with mentors. According to Stuart, her husband was one of the best mentors she could have asked for. "He died two weeks before [Amanda's] first birthday," Thelma said. "He was the best father any little girl could have ever wanted."
Comments about this story? MSchnitzel@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 265.
