By LINDA CHION KENNEY
Two old friends reconnected last week at a holly bush in Riverview, outside the civic center, where the Riverview Garden Club celebrated its 70th anniversary.
In a break from historical presentations, the two women, Suzanne Fuqua and Lynn Keen, walked outside, just west of the building, to see the bush the club had planted days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Living now out of town, the women were in Riverview for the Sept. 11 anniversary luncheon, held 23 years to the day after a series of airline hijackings and suicide attacks left nearly 3,000 people dead in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania. The images burn bright: the collapsing north and south towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan; the destruction to the southwest side of the Pentagon; and the burning field in Somerset County, Pa., after heroic passengers charged the cockpit of United Flight 93, preventing it from hitting the hijackers’ intended target, believed to be the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
Suzanne Fuqua, left, and Lynn Keen visit the holly bush and its 9/11 memorial plaque on Sept. 11, 2024.
Linda Chion Kenney Photos
Suzanne Fuqua, left, and Lynn Keen, at the 9/11 holly bush memorial at the Riverview Civic Center and Park
“It was just unbelievable,” Keen said, about the news unfolding in real time on the television in her living room, where her son [on] Sept. 11, 2001, had been recuperating from brain cancer. “He called to me, ‘Mom, Mom,’ and I saw the second tower hit. You just sat there in disbelief, that you’re watching this horrible thing happen.”
Days after the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks, Riverview Garden Club members met at the Riverview Civic Center and Park at 11020 Park Drive to plant the holly bush. They met there again after the plaque they had ordered arrived and placed it at the holly tree’s base, where it remains to this day. It reads: “In Loving Memory of Those We Lost, 9-11-01.”
In view at the clubhouse last week, a slideshow, created by Sheila DeBow and her husband, Rick, recounted the history of the garden club, including its 11 charter members, 1955 drive to address the increasing pollution of the Alafia River, drive to beautify a 1-mile section of U.S. Highway 301, Arbor Day tree plantings, plant shows, wildflower plantings, scholarship program and the 2001 planting of the 9/11 memorial holly bush, planted after a motion to do so by club member Eileen Wilson.
The plaque was placed in memory “of those we lost” in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“It needs some trimming now, but it was this little thing, a little holly tree,” said Fuqua, club president in 2001, at the base of the bush last week. “Back then we had everybody come out, all of our members, and when the plaque came in, we planted that and had another commemoration.”
In remarks by President George W. Bush at the dedication of the Flight 93 National Memorial on Sept. 14, 2012, he noted that “in the distance of a decade, 9/11 can feel like part of a different era.”
Yet, Bush continued, “for the families of the men and women stolen . . . that day will never feel like history. The memory of that morning is fresh, and so is the pain.”
So it was for a teary-eyed Fuqua at the base of the greatly grown and commemorative holly bush last week, where overcome with emotion she spoke in tribute of her cousin, Edward Joseph Seitz, killed in the Global War on Terror, which included the Iraq War from 2003-11. Seitz, a special agent with Diplomatic Security, died Oct. 24, 2004, in a rocket attack in Baghdad.
“We used to be a kinder people, and I don’t see that now,” Fuqua said, noting the immediate affects in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. “We came together as a nation.”
Riverview Garden Club archives
The holly bush in a 2006 photo, with Riverview Garden Club members in attendance
And so it was on Sept. 11, 2024, throughout the county and nation, as tributes took place to remember the worst attack on American soil since 177 aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service attacked the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. That surprise attack, Dec. 7, 1941, precipitated the nation’s entry into World War II.
The Pearl Harbor attack left 2,403 Americans killed or missing, and another 1,178 injured. The 9/11 attacks killed 2,977 people and resulted in more than 6,000 injuries. Tens of thousands of people since are battling or have succumbed to cancers and other illnesses related to the 9/11 attacks. First responders and heroic bystanders will forever be memorialized for their rescue, cleanup and rebuilding efforts.
For the slain that day and the souls lost since; for those who suffered and are suffering in illness; for those who forever will grieve; and for those who pressed on, stronger for the wear, a tall and wide-spanning holly bush stands as testament to the spirit of a nation that prevails, “in loving memory of those we lost.”
