Memorial born of quest to remember lost children

PHILADELPHIA - (KRT) - It was at an October 2001 college football game, the temple of old-boy cheer and camaraderie, that Jim Matthews encountered the meaning of sorrow.
The Montgomery County commissioner had come to Franklin Field to watch his alma mater, Holy Cross, get pummeled by the University of Pennsylvania. John Sigmund, a fellow alumnus, sat next to him.
A casual conversation about cars quickly turned serious. Sigmund's daughter, Johanna, had died at the foot of the World Trade Center 25 days earlier, he explained. He wanted a new car to get his wife out of the house.
Matthews stammered condolences. The conversation would haunt him.
Nine months later, a beam from the World Trade Center wreckage landed in Montgomery County, Pa., thanks to contacts with the FBI and New York City Police Department developed by Sheriff John Durante from 30 years at the county detectives bureau.
The memento came with one caveat - that it would be properly memorialized. Matthews and Durante vowed to give it a place of respect.
No Montgomery County residents died in the Sept. 11 attacks, unlike neighboring Bucks County, which lost 17 people. No one was asking for a monument, and no one was volunteering to pay for one.
But at least four families, including John and Ruth Sigmund, raised children in Montgomery County who went on to live in New York City. For Matthews, that was enough for a monument that would honor Sept. 11 victims and those who came to their rescue.
Scheduled to be unveiled Sept. 8, Montgomery County's memorial will be the first major public Sept. 11 monument in the Philadelphia area.
Like many communities, the county has proceeded slowly. Most major monuments - the Ground Zero memorial, the Flight 93 memorial in Shanksville, Pa., the New Jersey State Memorial in Jersey City, and Bucks County's Garden of Reflection - are not yet built.
Matthews didn't want to do a memorial right away, he said, thinking there would be more terrorist attacks.
He also was distracted: His 22-year-old son, Patrick John was diagnosed with leukemia in February 2003. He died four months later.
It was then, Matthews said, that he comprehended the fear of every grieving parent - that their child would be forgotten. And he pondered how different it must be for parents whose children simply disappeared into the Trade Center dust.
Matthews said he wanted to give those families something tangible.
"When you do a memorial, it gives a physical presence," he said. "I think we're going to be very surprised at the magnetic effect of this memorial. It's going to bring thousands of people physically in contact with the Twin Towers."
BY JEFF SHIELDSKnight Ridder Newspapers