OBSERVER Photo by Braden Carmen Alice Mekus of Dunkirk displays a scrapbook filled with items documenting Sept. 11, 2001, and how the region responded.

Before his passing at age 100 on Jan. 4, 2021, it was a given that longtime Dunkirk resident and retired firefighter Bill Reardon would be in attendance at the annual 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony on Eagle Street in the north county city. Like so many of us, Reardon watched in horror on that Tuesday morning as America was attacked.

As the planes were crashing into the World Trade Center, he and his late wife, Helen, viewed in sorrow and panic knowing that a family member was working in the towers at that time. “He got out of it,” he said in a 2020 interview, noting the grandson, Jason, had since left the financial field in Manhattan and was working at Genesee Community College.

Twenty-one years later, many of us remain emotional over the happenings of that day. Some families, like those of Celoron’s Amy King who was a flight attendant and died during the attacks, will be in a never-ending pain.

Similar to the John F. Kennedy assassination of 1963, a more recent generation knows where we were when we heard the news about New York City. That sudden shock and disbelief of the moment was followed by grieving and stillness, which arrived later that evening while attending local vigils.

After the cowardly sucker punch on innocents, however, Americans came together through prayer, in tears and community involvement in finding ways to help families and individuals who were impacted by the events of that day. “Many of the residents in Dunkirk and around the country stood up. … The street I was living on at the time was lined with flags on almost every single house,” Dunkirk Fire Chief Mike Edwards said during the city’s 9/11 services in 2021. “It was a long block … and it lasted for a while.”

As divided as this country seems today due to the changing and sometimes toxic political spectrum, there was no denying the unity of September 2001. One city resident who continues to remember — and assist city firefighters with the annual ceremony — is Alice Mekus.

In 2021, she gave the department a shadow box that included photos of Ground Zero and U.S. flags surrounded by the words “God Bless America.” In addition, she contributed poems centered around the historic day. One was from the late Joseph J. Carrus Jr., another longtime Dunkirk resident, entitled “The Seed of Liberty.” A portion of the poem reads:

“Across the chasm of eternity

In the starlit night

May their faces shine

In heavenly light

They, the seed of liberty, born again

As the new war will begin.

In sorrow, people united strong

to right a terrorist wrong.

Never crushed,

but burnt and trodden down,

Old Glory rises anew

Freedom from the ashes pursue

People from mountain, plain and sea

From afar the light of liberty forever see.”

During an interview this week, Mekus recalled a ceremony she organized during the week of September 2001 on Sixth Street and Park Avenue that became a large gathering to bring healing while supporting a nation. In 2002, a similar event was held in the same location to mark the one-year anniversary.

“I have three sons,” she said. “They were never in the service … so I’m grateful (for that) and 100% for the veterans and 9/11 because of that,” she said “I pray for all the mothers and fathers who lost their sons and daughters in the wars of the past and on 9/11.”

Ceremonies to commemorate the Sept. 11 anniversary are at 9 a.m. Sunday in Dunkirk at the fire station on Eagle Street. In addition, the American Legion and the Chautauqua County Veterans Council will hold a 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony at noon Sunday in front of the Chautauqua County Courthouse, 1 N. Erie St.

John D’Agostino is the editor of the OBSERVER, The Post-Journal and Times Observer in Warren, Pa. Send comments to jdagostino@observertoday.com or call 716-366-3000, ext. 253.