I’ll always remember that it was a Tuesday morning, the weekday my father packed two shopping bags of food items, puzzles from the newspaper, and other essentials. He’d take the R train from the Elmhurst Ave Station to 49th Street in the City, and walk to 515 W. 48th Street, off 10th Avenue, his boyhood home, where his mother still lived, the widow of a NYC firefighter, and an FDNY symbol in her own right.

This Tuesday morning, when the planes struck and the world changed twenty-five years ago, the routine visit was promptly cancelled. “My father is fine,” I told her. “Something really bad happened downtown. A lot of firemen and people at the World Trade Center are hurt or worse. Better not turn on the news today, it’s too upsetting.”

Georgiana Lair, born and raised in the Bronx, met James McMenamin, it is said, at Madison Square Garden at a basketball game. This would have been the Second Garden (1890-1924), designed by Stanford White, at E. 26th Street and Madison Avenue, and was known to feature the barnstorming team the ‘Original Celtics,’ who dominated early basketball from 1914-1930. They married in 1922. McMenamin, after a tour in the National Guard in the Southwest as part of the Pancho Villa campaign (1916-1917), set his sights on becoming a NYC firefighter. He served in three companies as a driver; Engine 8 from 1920-1923 located at E. 51st St, Manhattan, Engine 83 from 1923-1927 located at E. 138th St. in the Bronx, and Engine 75 from 1927-1930, located at 2283 Jerome Avenue, Bronx, where he met his untimely death at the stationhouse from a chronically recurring allergic condition.

Mrs. McMenamin began receiving a small monthly pension, and relocated to Hell’s Kitchen in the apartment at 515 W. 48th St, with three small children, Josephine, 2, James, 4, and Dorothy, 7. Her parents, George and Josephine Lair, lived in the apartment directly below. In 1932, she took the position of Fire Matron. Her duties included washing, ironing, sewing, cleaning, etc., a position she held for the next sixty years, until her retirement in 1991. Her stationhouse, Engine 40, Ladder 35, was on W. 63rd St. until 1960, when it relocated to W. 66th St. and Amsterdam. It was a source of pride her entire life and she considered her boys at the firehouse to be a second family. Up until 1946, she took the Tenth Avenue trolley, until it ceased, then primarily walked the distance, only taking yearly vacations to visit her daughters and their families, who by the early 1960s, moved upstate.

After her retirement, she remained, at just five feet tall, an opinionated, independent and intellectually curious presence. The firemen from her stationhouse continued the tradition by visiting her monthly, giving her an envelope and some bakery items, and listening to her stories about the days of yore. That Tuesday morning, Engine 35, Ladder 40 lost twelve members: Capt. Frank J. Callahan L 35, Lt. John Ginley E40, FF Kevin Bracken E40, FF Michael D’Auria E40, FF Bruce Gary E40, FF James A. Giberson L35, FF Michael D. Lynch E40, FF Daniel Marshall 3rd E40, FF Steve Mercado E40, FF Vincent Morello L35, FF Michael Otten L35, and FF Michael E. Roberts L 35.

In the immediate aftermath, my grandmother, with her ever-active spirit, wanted to feel useful. “I’m going to call my Captain,” she said. “I’d like to return to active duty. I can make sandwiches. There must be something I can do to help.” “Grandma,” I responded, “You’re a hundred years old now. It’s best to stay calm. There are plenty of people across the country coming to help in this effort.” After the magnitude of the attacks was fully absorbed, she’d mention that Tuesday morning phone call. “It was so considerate of you to preface the call by saying your father is fine, before delivering the terrible news for our country.” Once the names of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice were published, she shook her head in disbelief. Then her eyes lit with recognition, repeating some names, “Yes, he sat in that chair in the living room, or he had a big sense of humor, or he used to show up at the window on the fire truck ladder. She didn’t know all of the twelve, some were new, or had yet to visit, but nonetheless, emotions and the imprints left by history become intertwined for all of us. Let’s never forget that Tuesday morning, for in all of us, a story brews.

James McMenamin is the Vice President of the Newtown Civic Association, Elmhurst History and Cemeteries Preservation Society, and the Elmhurst Memorial League. His grandmother, Georgiana, passed on May 12, 2004, a month shy of her 103rd birthday.