Frank Haight: Memory of 9/11 personal for Independence woman

When the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center were reduced to rubble in a terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001, Virginia Anthony – like millions of other stunned Americans – was appalled.

Virginia’s desire – like that of countless patriotic Americans – was to do something that would make a difference in the lives of those cleaning up the toxic carnage at Ground Zero. But what could a library secretary at Campbell Middle School in Lee’s Summit do to help?

God responded by opening the door for First Baptist Church of Lee’s Summit – where she worshiped – to team up with a small Baptist church in Liberty in providing volunteers for the large, white canteen tent at Ground Zero.

She knew the Lord was calling her to New York.

So Virginia signed up for the weeklong mission trip, which began for her in March 2002 when her 15-member mission team arrived in New York City on the six-month anniversary of 9/11.

“We filled a three-week block in New York City,” says Virginia, explaining she was in the third block. “I felt like I was just a tiny portion of all Americans who wanted to help. And so many came and did what they could to help.”

It didn’t take Virginia long to realize why she and the others were in New York. After checking into their hotel next to the historic Calvary Baptist Church, which had issued the call for more volunteers, the group walked the unfamiliar streets on a mission: To purchase “things” for the tiny refrigerator in their hotel room.

“As we walked to the store, there was a commercial plane in the air that went behind a building, and I thought, ‘That’s why I am here,’” she says tearfully, her voice filled with emotion. Seeing the aircraft disappear, she says, brought back memories of what occurred just a short distance away on 9/11. "That was when the realization hit me as to why we were there.”

During an emotional interview at Virginia’s beautiful hilltop home in Independence, Virginia recalled walking to the canteen for the first time on a snowy night and focusing on two giant beams of light pointing straight up from a lot next to the canteen.

Seeing the falling snow and the giant beams recreating a ghostly image of the Twin Towers reassured Virginia she was “in the right place” ... “filling a niche that needed to be filled.”

The team that came with Virginia was divided into groups of five, working different shifts. Three were assigned to the canteen across the street from Ground Zero; the others worked in the medical examiner’s section near the University of New York Hospital.

Dressed in a Salvation Army shirt during her 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift at the canteen, Virginia did a variety of things, including serving meals, preparing food and keeping the serving areas clean.

“Whatever (food) we were having, I put it on their plates,” she says, noting the American Red Cross, The Salvation Army, the Southern Baptist Convention and area eateries supplied the meals.

The thousands of pit workers – who came in shifts throughout the day and night – ate at huge tables, each seating about 20 people. All tables had tablecloths and linen napkins on them, she says, explaining the city wanted to make sure the dedicated workers were well taken care of.

The canteen workers didn’t glean any information from those they served, Virginia says, because talking to them one-on-one was taboo.

“Really, they didn’t want us to (talk to them). They wanted us to stay in the background,” she says, adding: “The workers would say, 'Thank you for being here,’ but they didn’t want us to talk to them. We were just there to support them.”

Also taboo was the pit area. And even though they were not allowed to enter it, they were able to take home a foot-square section from one of the Twin Towers as a memento, thanks to Jerry Greener, a FEMA photographer and a personal friend of Virginia.

With accessibility to the pit, Jerry obtained a piece of a steel beam that had already been cleansed of debris, toxicants and contaminants to give to Virginia’s group as a souvenir.

Jerry suggested cutting the beam into 15 equal pieces so everyone could have a piece. But his suggestion fell on deaf ears.

Says Virginia: “We didn’t have the heart to do that. So it is now hanging at First Baptist Church, in a shadowbox, with the names of the volunteers who went.”

Virginia doesn’t know from which tower the memento came, but she’s sure of this: It came from Ground Zero.

Another memory was the silence that fell whenever body parts clothing were being removed from the pit. “Even six months later, everything stopped,” Virginia recalls. “It was so chilling.”

Virginia says her trip of a lifetime had a dramatic effect on her life. For the past 10 years, Virginia, who plays the euphonium in the Spirit of Independence Community Concert Band, has taken all her New York photographs to Campbell Middle School on the 9/11 anniversary to explain to the children the significance of the terrorist attack.

“I wanted to keep the event alive,” she says. And she has.

Virginia, the mother of two adult daughters, is thankful for God’s protection – especially during the first two days in the Big Apple.

“We were all rubes,” she admits. “We didn’t know what we were doing. We didn’t know where we were going. We just knew we wanted to help. … God was a real protector for us.”