Opening This Weekend—

Award-Winning, Emotional ‘Connecticut Responds

To 9/11’ Exhibit To Be Presented In Brookfield

By Shannon Hicks

Bradley Vadas.

Joseph Coppo.

Margaret Connor.

Joel Miller.

Wendy R. Faulkner…

They may or may not have known each other in life, but they are connected by death. These five people — and nearly 150 others with direct ties to Connecticut — were among those who perished on September 11, 2001.

In less than a month, the nation will observe the eighth anniversary of 9/11. To honor the solemn event as a whole and remember the Connecticut residents who lost their lives that day, Brookfield Historical Society will host this year’s presentation of the Connecticut Historical Society (CHS) traveling exhibit “September 11, 2001: Connecticut Responds and Reflects.”

The award-winning exhibit, which debuted in Hartford three years ago and is presented just once annually, will be housed this year at Brookfield Museum & Historical Society, opening Saturday, August 22, and remaining on view until Sunday, October 25.

“September 11, 2001: Connecticut Responds and Reflects” includes photographs and personal mementos from some of the 152 Connecticut victims who lost their lives in the tragedy and an audio/video station where visitors can listen to oral histories, newscasts, and musical compositions related to 9/11. Last year the collection was presented The Connecticut League of History Organizations’ 2008 Award of Merit.

One focal point is Connecticut’s 9/11 Memorial Library, which consists of 152 binders created in memory of each victim. The binders include public information, family photos, poems and letters, as well as articles given by friends and family members. The binders allow visitors to personally connect with the victims through their own words and those of the people who loved them.

“Families continue to contact us to update the binders,” Anne Guernsey said Tuesday afternoon. Ms Guernsey, the coordinator of volunteers, evaluation, and statistics for Connecticut Historical Society, was in Brookfield with a team from CHS to install the exhibition. At one point she picked up a box and pulled out its contents: a stack of pages, at least two inches thick, that had just been received from the family of Bradley Vadas. It was to be added to Mr Vadas’s binder.

“This is the family’s chance to show us who the people were, how wonderful they were,” Ms Guernsey said, looking through pages that showed Mr Vadas as a young child, skiing, posing with family members. The brother of Newtown Police Officer Chris Vadas, Bradley Vadas was 37 years old and a vice president with the brokerage firm Keefe Bruett and Woods, on the 89th floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center, when it was struck by the hijacked United Airlines Flight 175.

“Families have shared photos, memories, and narrations about their family members,” said Ms Guernsey. “We’ve actually had families give us report cards.”

The binders, she is quick to point out, honor not only Connecticut residents, but also a few people with ties to the state.

“Each of the 152 victims that Connecticut identified as their own has their own binder,” said Ms Guernsey. “Not all were living in Connecticut at the time of 9/11, but these are people the state considered their own.”

One such example is Peter Hanson and his family, wife Sue Kim and daughter Christine Lee. All three were on United Airlines 175; Christine was, at just 2½, the youngest victim of the day.

Although the Hansons were living in Groton, Mass., in 2001, Peter grew up in Easton and his parents, said Ms Guernsey, had asked that he be included in the CHS collection. Eunice and Lee Hanson still live in Easton and also requested that all information related to Peter, Sue, and Christine be gathered into one binder. Separate binders have been set up with the names of Sue and Christine on their spines, but readers then find a single page inside each book that directs them to the binder where all three will always be kept together.

The Hanson family also gave CHS a piece of steel recovered from the World Trade Center, which is included in a showcase that also presents items that belonged to other victims.

An elegy written by Carl Schroeder, called “Christine’s Lullaby” in honor of the youngest Hanson, was performed by drummer Mickey Hart during a 2003 concert that was dedicated to the Hansons and all who died in the attacks. A recording of that performance is included in the audio-visual section of “Connecticut Responds.” Visitors can listen to oral histories and interviews with people who lost loved ones, firefighters and other first responders, volunteers, an artist, a pastoral counselor, a member of the military, and one woman who remembered the building of the World Trade Center.

The oral histories also includes an interview with Beverly Eckert, the 9/11 widow who co-founded the victim’s advocacy group Voices of September 11th. Mrs Eckert, whose husband Sean Rooney was also among those killed when the WTC south tower was hit, was killed this past February when Continental Flight 3407 crashed in Buffalo. She was, as many may recall, flying to her hometown that evening with the intention of honoring what would have been her late husband’s 58th birthday and delivering an address at Canisius High School, where Mr Rooney’s memory was to be honored with a scholarship.

Another division of the exhibition is the Connecticut Remembers Memorial Board. An evolving element of the collection, the memorial board was started in March 2002 by the CT Helps Office of Family Support. Strongly echoing the postings seen at Ground Zero, Union Square, and other parts of Manhattan in the aftermath of 9/11, the board was a place where Connecticut residents could post photos, letters, artwork, and poems.

The board traveled across the state for two years. In 2006 the collection was donated to CHS, which has preserved all of the original items that were posted. On view is a selection of photocopied items, which change with each presentation of “Connecticut Responds and Reflects.”

CHS has issued an open invitation to the state’s residents who wish to donate additional items.

Finally, a special Brookfield section highlighting community involvement during and after 9/11 is also included. This section features images honoring the victims, personal remembrances of residents (those who were either working in the World Trade Center or lower Manhattan on 9/11) who provide eyewitness accounts of the day’s harrowing experience, and accounts of Brookfield first responders. Related items on display include a driver’s license and a WTC building pass recovered from Ground Zero and later returned to its owner, Brookfield resident Kristan Dunkelberger.  

“Each year around late August this exhibit travels to someplace in Connecticut,” Ms Guernsey said. “We try to circulate it around so that as many people as possible can see it.”

“September 11, 2001: Connecticut Responds and Reflects” debuted in 2006 with a presentation at CHS in Hartford. It has since been presented in Westport (2007) and Suffield (2008); it is scheduled to be shown in Ridgefield next year.

“Last year over 500 people saw it,” said Ms Guernsey. “We were thrilled. The turnout continues to be wonderful.

“In fact, I think people are now a little more comfortable with this subject,” she continued. “There is more distance between now and the event. People want to see the history.”

The exhibition focuses on those who were lost and the historical implications of the day. It does not, Ms Guernsey pointed out, concentrate on the devastation of that Tuesday.

“Aside from raw footage shot by Sikorsky pilots that shows Manhattan [shortly after the attacks], the exhibition is not graphic,” she stressed. “We didn’t want to concentrate on the destruction.”

Gene Roberts, a board member of Brookfield Museum & Historical Society, helped with the exhibition’s installation.

“We’re honored to be the only venue in the state to host this exhibit this year,” Mr Roberts said on Tuesday. “We had four people connected to Brookfield who passed away, so we felt there was a connection to the town as well as the area.

“They say the character of a community is measured by how they remember their dead. We are trying to live up to that.”

Brookfield Museum & Historical Society is at 165 Whisconier Road, which is at the intersection of Routes 25 and 133 in Brookfield Center. The building and exhibit are wheelchair accessible. Usually open for a few hours each Saturday during the summer, the museum will be open for this exhibition each Wednesday and Thursday from 10 am to 2 pm; and weekends, 10 am to 4 pm.

The museum will also be open on Monday, September 11. An ecumenical service of remembrance will be celebrated at 10 am in the museum garden (adjacent to the museum building), and then the exhibition will remain open until 4 pm.