'This day must be remembered.' Utica holds 9/11 remembrance ceremony

When an airplane first flew into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, Don Kauth’s family assumed he was on another trip, not at his desk in the Keefe, Bruyette & Woods office in Tower 2, his sister Vanessa K. Graham said.

Kauth, Graham and their five siblings grew up in Utica, although Graham now lives in Ilion and in 2001, Kauth was spending his weeks in New York or on the road and his weekends with his four kids in Saratoga.

But Kauth, 51, was in the office that day and he didn’t make it out, his sister said. The siblings had already lost one brother and on 9/11 they lost their oldest brother.

“He was just a wonderful guy,” Graham said. “It was all about his kids.”

Wearing a T-shirt with her brother’s name and photo on the back, Graham took part in Utica’s 9/11 remembrance ceremony Wednesday morning at the city’s 9/11 memorial park on the Memorial Parkway at its intersection with Sherman Drive.

Father Joseph Salerno, chaplain of both the Utica police and fire departments, opened the remembrance ceremony with a prayer. He prayed for those who died in the attacks and those who died while trying to help. But he also prayed for all the babies born all over the world that day.

He asked that they be given “a world filled with hope and peace and good.”

Speaker after speaker spoke of the importance of remembering, not just the tragedy of the terrorist attack that killed 2,998 people in New York, Pennsylvania and D.C., but also all those who rushed forward to help, many of whom died that day or in the years to follow of sicknesses associated with the dust, and for the members of the military who died in the wars that followed.

"Twenty-three years somehow have passed since Sept. 11, 2001 on a day that was remarkably similar,” Utica Fire Chief Scott Ingersoll said. He also noted that although the Utica police and fire departments hold the memorial service every year, the crowds have gotten smaller over time.

But he pledged that firefighters and police officers will continue to mark the day and make sure that people remember.

'This day must be remembered'

Utica Mayor Michael Galime, who was 21 at the time, was just eating cereal when the attacks started in 2011, he recalled.

“It was normal,” he said. “It was just a day. I had to head to class.”

Most people at the memorial still remember the day clearly, he said. And he pointed to the family members of victims in the crowd, as well as first responders and members of the military. But as time passes, fewer people will have memories of 9/11, he noted.

And that makes memorial ceremonies even more important, he said.

“We do this each year and we will continue to do this here in Utica, New York,” he said, “because this day must be remembered.”

Oneida County Anthony Picente Jr. sounded a positive note on Americans’ resilience.

“Things have changed (since 2001),” he said, “but some things don’t change. Our faith, our hope and our belief in the greatest nation remain the same.”

Utica firefighter Tom Carcone was in college on Sept. 11, 2001. But he dropped out to become a firefighter the next day, he recalled.

Carcone serves as president of Local 32 Utica Professional Fire Fighters Association and as District 2 vice president of the New York State Professional Fire Fighters Association. At executive board meetings with firefighters, police and fire representatives from New York City read a list before each meeting of those who have died since the last meeting three months earlier.

The lists used to include about 40 names, he said. “You couldn’t believe it was that many,” Carcone said.

Over the years, the numbers have slowly fallen, but when he last attended, there were still maybe 15 or 20 names on the list, he said.

“(The remembrance ceremony) is for our guys that continue to die and we continue to lose on a daily basis in connection with this tragedy,” he said.

And Carcone called for a moment of silence in memory of former Utica Fire Chief Russell Brooks, who died in June at age 75. As assistant fire chief, Brooks was among a dozen local firefighters who headed to New York City after 9/11 with a special camera made in Utica to help search the rubble.

A few years later, Brooks developed chronic lymphocytic leukemia, an illness that Brooks said had been certified as a World-Trade-Center-related condition by the federal World Trade Center Health Program.

Looking visibly shaken, Graham then placed a flower in her brother’s memory in front of the 9/11 memorial and its grieving angel statue. Her brother’s name is engraved on the side of the memorial, along with the names of six more people with local ties killed at the Twin Towers or in the crash at Shanksville, Pennsylvania on 9/11: Thomas Duffy, 52; Margaret Echterman, 33; Valerie Hanna, 57; Michael O’Brien, 42; Michele Reed, 26; and, in Shanksville, Edward P. Felt, 41.

“I didn’t think it would be as hard as it was,” Graham said after the ceremony, which she attended with her husband Ken.

Shirley Felt, mother of Edward Felt, was going to place a flower too, but her daughter-in-law placed it instead before Galime and Ingersoll placed a red, white and blue wreath by the memorial.

The memorial

The memorial sits in a circular flower bed filled primarily with pink and white petunias. Six flag poles, interspersed with six pink and white hydrangea bushes, form a semi-circle around the memorial, bearing the flags of the Utica Fire Department, the American Red Cross, New York State, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia (where the Pentagon was also attacked) and the United States.

And a plaque hanging from a signpost proclaims: “This park is dedicated to the memory of those who lost their lives as a result of the terrorist attacks against our country on September 11, 2001.”

“It’s so tough because 23 years,” Graham said afterwards, pausing. “He’s got a lot of grandkids.”

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And her brother missed seeing his daughter Kathleen win a bronze medal in the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy as part of the U.S. women’s ice hockey team, Graham said.

All five of his remaining siblings were there, wearing T-shirts with one letter on the front of each to spell out the name “Kauth” when they stood in a line.

“He would have been so proud of her,” Graham said.

Graham’s mom, Winnie, but not her dad, was still alive in 2001. “It shook her … for about a minute,” Graham said. “If she didn’t have her faith, she would have … But her faith got her through it.”

Years later, Winnie Kauth moved to an apartment in New York Mills after spending nearly six decades in Utica. Her new apartment was right across the street from a 9/11 memorial. Graham asked her mom if she was OK with seeing it every day.

“She said,” Graham recalled, “it gave her peace.”

So what does Graham think of the memorial ceremonies? “I think my takeaway,” she said, “is we just can’t forget, not just for him, but for everybody."

“I mean, he went to work. Can you imagine going to work and not coming home?”

This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Uticans remember 9/11 in ceremony at memorial park