Community Corner

Local Residents Remember Loved Ones Lost on 9/11

Patch is speaking to residents in the Woodridge area about how Sept. 11, 2001, changed their lives.

Although they took place hundreds of miles away, the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, still deeply affected those in the Woodridge area.

Patch told the stories last week of two families who lost loved ones in the attacks on the World Trade Center.

spoke with 25-year Hinsdale resident Sue Mladenik, whose husband, Jeff, was Hinsdale resident Sue Mladenik's husband Jeff was on board one of the flights that hit the World Trade Center.

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Listen to her memories of the day by clicking on the video to the right.

A Lemont woman shared the loss of her cousin with .

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Amy Kelly's cousin, Shari Kandel, was working at the banking firm Cantor Fitzgerald, which occupied floors 101 through 105 in Tower One. The attack killed every one of the company's 658 employees, according to a BusinessWeek report.

Since Kandell’s death, Kelly, has worked hard to make sure her children—Chandler, 17, and Zach, 14—remember 9/11 each year.

At the time, Chandler and Zach were too young to understand the magnitude of the attacks, Kelly said. However, she still felt it was important to discuss.

"I do remember talking to them about it at the time, and in the days and years since then we have watched every movie, documentary and newscast about that day from many different perspectives," Kelly said. "In those years, in school, they have written about 9/11 whenever a research paper or something similar is assigned. Each time they wrote about it they dedicated the paper to my cousin."

Recently, however, Kelly has been disappointed by the lack of discussion in schools about the attacks.

“On the fifth anniversary my kids’ teachers never even made reference to the events of that day,” she said. “When I called the next day to ask why nothing was mentioned, I was told some variation of, ‘These kids were too young to even know about it’ or, ‘We didn't feel it was our place to educate the kids about it.'” 

Kelly said she hopes parents and teachers talk to their kids about the significance of 9/11, even if the kids are young. But, she said, she understands that her cousin's death makes them unlike other families, and takes pride in the way her children have remembered the day year after year.

"I love that my children feel what they do and that they take every opportunity to write about that day and that each and every paper and project is dedicated to a cousin they will never know," she said.

Want to share your story? E-mail melissat@patch.com.


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