Remembrances are arranged chronologically by the victims' graduating years.

Welles Crowther was the first person in my class that I met at BC. We were assigned to be freshman year roommates. I spoke to him on the phone, and we agreed to meet outside Giants Stadium prior to the Kickoff Classic game that we were both attending as our first activity as BC students. My first impression of him, after realizing that he was a Yankees fan and wondering how I was going to live with such a person for a whole school year, was, to my relief, that he was a laid back guy who almost always kept a smile on his face. I learned that day that he played lacrosse and hockey in high school, that he was going to be on the lacrosse team at BC, and that in his spare time he was a trained volunteer firefighter.

We only lived together for a little over a semester, as Welles moved out of our Newton Campus room during the spring semester to live on Upper Campus to be closer to his lacrosse parctices. We didn't become close friends, but we got along very well as roommates. I have several memories of that time: baseball arguments, a late night trip to St. E's, a ridiculously enormous sub sandwich, Welles' generosity in sharing everything he had, and more.

We didn't see each other very much after he moved out, but it still came as a shock when I heard that he had lost his life on September 11th. It did not come as a shock, however, when I found out later that he had a chance to escape, but he sacrificed himself and used his volunteer firefighter skills to help many others reach safety. It wasn't surprising at all. He was trained and he was generous with everything he had.

In March, the body of Welles Crowther '99, an equities trader in the South Tower, was found among those of firefighters and rescue workers in the lobby of the building. Crowther was himself a volunteer fireman, and it has since come to light that he joined the rescue efforts on the morning of September 11, rather than evacuate. Below is a story from the Journal News of southwestern Connecticut.

WTC Victim's Heroism Saved Lives

By Jane Lerner, The Journal News (Original publication: June 10, 2002)

It was a habit he picked up from his father and maintained until the last day of his life.

Welles Crowther always carried a red bandanna in his back pocket.

He had it with him during his years at Nyack High School, friends at Boston College noticed it and fellow volunteer firefighters at Empire Hook & Ladder in Upper Nyack teased him about it.

The red bandanna was tucked in his pocket the morning of Sept. 11 when the 24-year-old equities trader set out for his office at Sandler O'Neill & Partners on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center.

And it was the red bandanna that helped identify Crowther as the rescuer who saved countless people trapped on the top floors of the burning south tower that morning before losing his own life.

A man, a bandanna tied around his face, stepped out of the swirling clouds of smoke and crushing debris high up in the burning tower and led groups of wounded to safety, survivors recall.

"He spoke with such authority," recalled Judy Wein, who encountered the man on the rubble-strewn 78th floor. "He was calm, he showed us where the stairs were, he found a fire extinguisher, he carried people down the stairs and then went back up to help more."

No one knew his name at the time, but the people who survived those harrowing moments between the plane crash and the building collapse said they would never forget him.

"That face is always in my mind," said Ling Young, one of a handful of people who escaped from the floors above the plane's impact. "He saved my life."

Alison Crowther suspected her son was at the center of the mystery as soon as she began hearing reports of survivors ushered to safety by a man in a red bandanna.

"It made sense," she said. "All the pieces of the puzzle came together."

Welles, with his years of training as a volunteer firefighter, assumed the role of rescuer to help the injured and trapped reach safety following the terrorist attack on New York City, his family suspected.

Survivors who encountered the man in the red bandanna that morning confirmed their hunch.

Alison Crowther contacted Young and sent her a recent picture of Welles.

"As soon as I saw it, I knew it was him," said Young, a New Jersey resident who is still undergoing treatment for burns she suffered. She met Alison Crowther for lunch last week at a Manhattan restaurant.

"You don't forget a face like that," Young said.

Confirmation that their son was the civilian who came to the rescue of people trapped beyond the reach of emergency workers has brought comfort to the bereaved Upper Nyack family.

"He looked the devil straight in the eye that day and fought with all the strength and fiber of his being," Alison Crowther said. "He died saving others."

Welles and his father, Jefferson Crowther, made a habit of keeping a bandanna with them at all times. Jefferson Crowther favored blue; his son, red.

"The monogrammed hanky is for show," the pair would joke. "The bandanna is for blow."

Like his father, Welles became a volunteer firefighter as soon as he was old enough to qualify. He joined Empire Hook & Ladder in Upper Nyack when he was 16 and spent countless hours learning to be a firefighter at the Rockland Fire Training Center in Ramapo.

"When we were cleaning down the truck or working, I'd see him wipe his brow with the red bandanna," said Dave Low, a longtime family friend and fellow Empire volunteer.

Welles put his heart into his firefighting training, Low said.

By all accounts, he used that expertise on Sept. 11.

After the first plane hit the north tower that morning, he called friends and left a message for his mother that he was going to evacuate.

That should have given the strapping former lacrosse and hockey player enough time to reach safety, his parents reasoned.

They didn't know his fate until his body was recovered in March. No sign of the bandanna was found.

Puzzled officials told the Crowthers that Welles was found on the ground in the south tower lobbyÑone of only two civilians in a staging area where the bodies of numerous firefighters and emergency workers were recovered.

"Welles did what he did out of his sense of duty as a firefighter," Alison Crowther said. "He was not Welles Crowther, equities trader, that day. He was Welles Crowther, firefighter."

Survivors recall the hellish scene on the 78th floor where they encountered the man in the red bandanna.

Judy Wein had made her way from her Aon Corp. office on the 103rd floor to the 78th, which had a lobby and a bank of elevators that workers took to lower levels. She reached the 78th floor just as the plane hit.

"The impact was so strong that I was thrown so far Ñ I don't even know how far Ñ but it felt like I was airborne forever," the Queens resident said.

She landed on her arm, shattering it. Seconds later, a shock wave threw her back in the other direction, this time breaking her ribs and puncturing her lung.

She battled unconsciousness and woke to a hellish scene.

Corpses were everywhere. Severed limbs littered the floor. She recognized co-workers hopelessly pinned beneath steel beams and chunks of debris. Flaming embers were falling all around.

"People were lying there dead," Wein recalled. "Some were sitting up, dazed, some were whimpering."

She and small groups of people who survived the plane's initial impact made their way to an area that seemed better lighted.

"We didn't know where we were. We didn't know what to do," she said. "Then Welles shows up out of nowhere."

The man had his nose and mouth covered with the bandanna as protection against the smoke and dust.

He pointed out the stairs and issued instructions.

"Anyone who can walk, walk down the stairs. Anyone who can walk and help someone else, help. There are people here you cannot help anymore, so don't try to," survivors recall Crowther telling them.

He accompanied Wein, a woman with one broken arm and one burned arm, and a man with a severed arm to the 61st floor. From there, he instructed them to continue down the stairs.

"I have to leave you here," he said. "I have to go back up and help others."

Wein recalled seeing a fire extinguisher lying against a wall.

"It was a strange place for a fire extinguisher," she said.

She didn't know at the time that Ling Young had left the fire extinguisher there minutes before, when the man in the red bandanna accompanied her downstairs before going back up to the 78th floor.

Young was also dazed and injured after the plane struck. She had made her way to the 78th floor from her office at the state Department of Taxation and Finance on the 86th floor.

"My glasses filled with blood, I wiped them so I could see," she said. "There was nothing but dead people. My head was numb. I was afraid to move. We didn't know what to do."

Then the authoritative young man she later identified as Crowther appeared to show her the way.

The man removed the bandanna from his face on the way down, so Young got a good look at him.

He instructed her to carry a fire extinguisher in case they encountered flames, she recalled.

Along with Young, Crowther also accompanied a tall, thin, middle-aged white man. He carried a tall, thin, light-skinned black woman on his back.

Young does not know if either of those two victims made it out of the building alive.

Crowther left Young's small group around the 61st floor, telling them he had to go back for more people.

It is unclear how many trips up and down Crowther made or how many lives he saved that day before losing his own.

For the people he saved, identifying the man in the red bandanna has been bittersweet.

"He saved so many people, but he didn't save himself," said Young, who has a 24-year-old son.

When Young met with Alison Crowther last week, she looked through a family album showing a smiling youngster fishing with his grandfather, an impish schoolboy dressed for Halloween, a beaming brother with his two younger sisters, Honor and Paige, on Christmas morning.

"His whole life was ahead of him," Young said. "It's such a tragedy."

She embraced Alison Crowther and "thanked her for raising such a wonderful son." Both women recalled the instance.

Judy Wein, who is still undergoing treatment for her injuries, also hopes to meet the Crowther family. "He was a hero for doing what he did," she said. "It's amazing that in this day and age someone could give of himself in a dangerous situation like that. Totally amazing."

But people who knew Welles say they aren't surprised by the feats he performed that terrible morning.

"People talk all kinds of talk," said Dave Low, a Vietnam War veteran who has known the Crowthers for years. "But when the moment of truth comes, you either do it or you don't do it. There was never any doubt in my mind that when the moment of truth came, Welles would do what needed to be done."

Copyright The Journal News. Reprinted with permission.

DANIEL W. McNEAL ’94

by Alex Houston ’94

Tom's enduring friendships with his BC classmates was evident at his memorial service in NY in September. More than 30 BC colleagues were in attendance and countless others have reached out to his family in the months following this tragedy. Personally, I will remember Tom as:

- another native New Yorker from the other Jesuit high school in New York City;

- my next door neighbor from Duchesne West who I met on my first day at BC;

- the roommate who lived with me for the next three years and shared so many college memories;

- the friend who grew closer long after we graduated;

- the connection that enabled me to know his wife Marianne and his children, Brendan and Caralyn;

- the person I talked to almost weekly on the phone right up until September 11th.

Brad, Ray, Jim and I were roomates junior year. Always the best dressed of us at the Rat, Brad loved to dance (a huge Michael Jackson fan) and had the prettiest girlfriend. I remember our food runs to the local market, filling
his old Mercedes with ice pops and mac 'n cheese, the staples of our diet.

Brad called me out of the blue about two years ago after stumbling across my phone number and filled me in about his job, new home on the water and the obligatory wave runner he scooted around on.

When I read his father's account of Brad's final phone calls from the WTC, I remembered the many calls between he and his dad while we lived together at BC. I remembered the sound of his voice and how close he and his dad were. I cannot imagine how heartbreaking those final moments were for the two of them. Peace to you Mr. Vadas and rest well Brad.

As I sit down to write this, I am filled with such sorrow that I am doing what I am doing. It seems so wrong to be writing words about Stacey because she is no longer with us. I had the privilege and pleasure of being Stacey’s roommate in the Mods during my senior year at BC. While we knew each other before senior year, we got to be great friends during that year. Stacey was an incredible person–she truly knew how to love life and she showed me how to enjoy it to its fullest. One of my very fondest memories of Stacey is of our trip to "Play it Again Sam's" for its Monday night $1 pizzas. After ordering 2 large pizzas (because we figured we could enjoy one the next day) we were challenged by other patrons to eat both...we did, along with 2 pitchers of beer! We made it home but only to be able to lie flat on the floor of our mod because we were so full! Despite feeling disgusting, we were proud of our consumption that night.

After BC, I moved to Washington DC and again was lucky enough to again share living quarters with Stacey. With both of us being new to DC, we ended up spending a lot of time together. That time was one of the best in my life. Stacey and I explored DC and adjusted to the real world after college. I can truly say that had Stacey not been in DC, I am not sure if I would have stuck it out.

Every time I think of Stacey being gone, I first get this horrible crushing sadness in my heart....it is hard to catch my breath..but once I do, I begin to remember the good times with Stacey. For those who have been fortunate to know Stacey, you know that the good times with her were numerous. As those good memories flow back into my head, I can’t help but smile, and even with the pain of losing Stacey, I still feel lucky to have been her friend. Stacey had so many important qualities–she loved her friends and family, she loved life, and she made you a better person when you were with her. The world is unfortunately a lesser place without her but we must remember the beauty that she left with us and the joy that she shared with us while she was here.

Stacey was one of my dorm-mates from Cheverus. I remember Stacey's warm smile, laughter, natural beauty, gentleness & athleticism. Through our four years at BC, we shared a few rides to NY, ran into each other at parties and exchanged friendly greetings on campus. Stacey was the kind of person who left an impression on you — it is an impression I will always remember.

My sympathy and prayers are with Stacey's family.

Dear BC family and friends:

Don't let time slip away. Both of us got busy with our lives, and missed opportunities to meet over the recent years.

We were kindred spirits and accountants. We were both investigative, or so-called forensic, auditors and extremely hard working coworkers and we both moved on; since February 1, 2001, she was a Vice President in the CAPS group at Marsh, Inc. on the 100th Floor of One WTC. Before that she was on the 56th floor, of One WTC. Both of her former co-workers got out safely. No one got out alive from the 100th floor.

Our mutual friend and hard-working accountant coworker, Art Reynolds, a non-BC, but easily could have been one, passed away in 1996. Danni joins him. We were a threesome. Danni was a good person, fun to be with, and energetically lit up any room she entered. I also attended the memorial Mass for Danni and the other alumni, friends, and their relatives lost. There were a lot of fond remembrances and her only crime was her responsible work ethic and getting into the office on time that day, which she did every day anyway.

Danni was a working stiff like the rest of us, in this country of immigrants. She was a French-American and even had a French education in grade and high school by the Dominican nuns, and she was a great crossword player, which she did sometimes at lunch. Danni knew all those offbeat Peter Greenaway films, one being The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover. She lived on the East Side of Manhattan in the 50s.

Danni was one of the good ones in the world, of which there are so few and we cannot afford to lose, we will all miss her.

In memory of Danielle Delie '76