May 25, 2005
By: James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
The fruit of Rudolph Valentino DiTommaso’s labor might never pass the lips of wine lovers as close to home as Indiana.
DiTommaso runs his own wine label, Valentino Vineyards in Long Grove, with grapes first planted 10 years ago.
Countless wine aficionados have never known DiTommaso’s vintage, nor those of more than 50 other small wineries in Illinois. Those wineries can’t ship wine directly to customers in roughly half the nation’s states, where wine import bans shut them out of the market.
Florida’s law would slap DiTommaso with a felony if he mailed a bottle to his father, who lives there.
But Florida and other states must rethink those bans in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision - a 5-4 ruling last week declaring interstate shipping bans unconstitutional in Michigan and New York.
Illinois wineries already have petitioned the federal courts to strike down Indiana’s direct shipping ban.
Their dream is for an open market that intoxicates their bottom lines. But states could just as easily dash those hopes into sour grapes by ending all direct shipping, closing the market even more.
At least one key concern for states is a fear that direct shipping of alcohol is yet another catalyst for underage drinking.
‘Low-level trade war’
States must treat in-state and out-of-state businesses the same, the court ruled.
“The current patchwork of laws - with some states banning direct shipments altogether, others doing so only for out-of-state wines and still others requiring reciprocity - is essentially the product of an ongoing, low-level trade war,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the prevailing opinion.
Only four states consume more wine than Illinois, according to the Illinois Grape Growers & Vintners Association. For local consumers, the ruling may open up the wine market across the country to a war where only the strongest grapes survive. Better quality wine at lower prices with more labels to choose from could be the outcome.
As many as 50 decisions must happen before that, as states must rewrite laws to reflect the court’s ruling.
Wine is a big-money business. Direct shipments of wine to consumers doubled from 1994 to 1999, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Direct shipping accounts for only 3 percent of all wine sales, but is worth $500 million a year.
The growth is not from the Beringers and Gallos of the world. It’s the little guys. There are more than 3,000 local wineries in the country now, three times the number 30 years ago, according to the National Association of American Wineries.
But wine wholesalers and distributors have consolidated, making it tough for wineries that don’t produce massive quantities of well-known products to make it to store shelves.
Prohibition-era roots
Distributors, who some small vineyards blame for squeezing them out, became part of the mix when Prohibition ended. States still wanted to regulate alcohol, so a three-tier system was born.
It injects a distributor between alcohol producers and retailers. That helped calm the retail pressure of selling as much alcohol as possible to maximize profits.
Local wineries say the system works only for the Robert Mondavis of the world.
For instance, Galena Cellars, which operates a store in Geneva, can’t pay distributors to ship their wine without charging an elite price.
Scott Lawlor, whose family owns Galena Cellars, said distributors and retailers each want such a large chunk of the pie that a $30 price tag would be the only way to turn a profit.
“In other words, I don’t make money in that circle,” he said.
A $30 bottle of wine is too pricey for most consumers, especially the burgeoning twentysomething market, he added.
Movies like the Oscar-winning “Sideways” and local wine shops are defusing the hoity-toity stigma, attracting younger customers, wineries say.
The Glunz Family Winery in Grayslake is benefiting from the youth movement, but not enough for distributors to carry their relatively few bottles of wine, General Manager Suzzie Glunz Holtgrieve said. Direct shipping is the best way to turn a profit for them. The difficulty is achieving visibility without a distributor.
“There must be a happy medium,” she said.
Illinois wineries must wait at least a little longer for that because the initial impact of the court’s ruling will be modest locally, Illinois Solicitor General Gary Feinerman said.
Illinois has agreements with several other states allowing direct shipments of wine to consumers. The state is an open market, even for other states that don’t allow Illinois to ship in.
The Supreme Court revoked the choice to discriminate, but set in motion a host of other choices, said Jeff Modisett, a commercial litigation expert who worked to end the direct-shipping bans.
State legislatures must open the floodgates to direct shipping, or ban it for everyone, Modisett said.
Word is Michigan may be one of the states to kill all direct shipping, Modisett said.
“That to me is like throwing the baby out with the bath water,” he said. “It’s not clear to me what they are trying to protect by doing that.”
The answer is money and underage drinking.
Money and minors
States with bans argue it’s harder to ensure an out-of-state winery pays taxes on the wine it ships in.
The second concern is an outcry from substance abuse groups.
“When there is increased availability, there’s more of a chance youth will get alcohol,” said Sara Moscato, associate director of the Illinois Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Association. “The majority of people with alcohol dependence started before 21. This is definitely not going to help.”
The counter argument says 16-year-olds won’t wait a week for a bottle of wine to come in the mail when they can get their older brother to buy beer at the local 7-Eleven. Just put a label on the package and require an adult’s signature.
That doesn’t always happen, Moscato said. She’s aware of at least two tests where minors obtained alcohol by mail because the package wasn’t labeled or the delivery person didn’t ask for an ID.
“Do we want or expect to have FedEx and UPS start being bouncers and checking IDs when they drop off packages?” Moscato said. “Their job is not to prevent underage drinking.”
The Supreme Court said the evidence doesn’t support Moscato’s concerns. Local wineries don’t buy into the drunken-youths argument either. They fear a negative impact on their livelihoods.
“Huge,” “big” and “incredible” are all words used by local grape gurus to describe what a truly open wine market would mean for them. Word-of-mouth and Internet advertising will trickle into other states potentially causing more sales in new markets.
Potentially.
“I was excited about the ruling for one day, but then I sat back and thought that our state could now pass a law that could really hurt us,” said Galena Cellar’s Lawlor. “The ruling could help us, but it may put us back in the dark ages.”
Indeed, lawmakers say the wine trade across the country, is “up for grabs” now.
The Illinois Senate hosted hearings on the issue, under the leadership of Sen. Ira Silverstein, to forecast the impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling. None of the parties that testified swayed Silverstein into thinking anything was wrong with Illinois’ current setup.
But Silverstein didn’t expect the court to rule anything unconstitutional.
His immediate concern is the potential of a lawsuit claiming Illinois’ special shipping arrangements with several states are unconstitutional.
Local winemakers fear distributors will either try to limit the amount of wine local wineries can ship, or close off all direct shipping in Illinois.
Fred Koehler, who owns Lynfred Winery in Roselle, said a total direct shipping ban or severe limits would be poison in his glass.
“It’d put us out of business,” Koehler said. “That’s how serious it is. Why does the state want to put up more challenges for businesses when we’re an industry that’s trying to grow? But that’s what we have to watch out for because distributors are trying to monopolize the industry.”
It’s a fine line between monopoly and protecting your business. Distributors will continue to fight for the supremacy of face-to-face sales.
DiTommaso makes many face-to-face sales at his winery. He also doesn’t have a problem with shipping wine with a label requiring an adult signature.
Until new laws are written, it’ll be business as usual for DiTommaso. He has his local regular customers. And he’ll still have tourists come in, fall in love with his wine and return home with a few precious bottles because they can’t order any more by mail.
But one day, DiTommaso said he believes that will all change.
“As time goes on, and more wine customers and wineries put the pressure on, more states will open up. This isn’t a done deal yet.”
Tuesday
21 It's the law. But is it fair?
July 17, 2005
By: James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
If the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was a person, it would likely be headed out to a local bar tonight to celebrate.
Today is the 21st birthday of the law enacted by President Ronald Reagan that tied the drinking age to federal transportation dollars. States that didn't set their minimum purchase age at 21 lost their federal road money.
The idea was to help put the brakes on drunken driving deaths among 18- to 20-year-olds - those most likely to be in alcohol-related accidents.
Twenty-one years later, government agencies and substance abuse groups say the law has played a key role in saving thousands of lives. But youth rights groups, armed with studies from sympathetic college professors, tell a different tale of self-destruction brought on by a discriminatory law.
Why 21?
As the United States continues to send young people overseas to fight wars, some lawmakers are beginning to show signs of bending to the argument of "old enough to die for the country, old enough to drink."
Wisconsin is considering lowering the drinking age for military personnel. Vermont Gov. James Douglas has voiced support for lowering its drinking age to 18 if it passes the state legislature.
If either change happens, it'll be the first sign America is learning from a longstanding failure, Arlington Heights native Brad White believes.
A senior at the University of Missouri-Columbia, White is a former staff member of the National Youth Rights Association.
"I don't think our kids can learn responsibility by just giving them alcohol and saying 'OK, be responsible' when they hit 21," White said. "You don't hand a kid a car at 16 and tell them to go drive. You have to teach them."
Driving is a key component of the issue, with statistics cited on both sides to show the law has been both a success and a failure.
From 1993 to 2003, nearly 60,000 drivers under 21 in Illinois were arrested for driving with some amount of alcohol in their blood systems, according to the secretary of state's office. Drivers under 21 are still the single largest group involved in alcohol-related deaths.
That only counts the number of people who were caught.
"It does point to a problem with underage drinking," said Brad Fralick, adviser to Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White on DUI issues. "No one is disputing that underage drinking is going on. But no matter which end you're looking at, the law has certainly been a success."
The proof of success is in the 1,000 lives the drinking age has saved every year, said Susan McKinney, executive director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving in Illinois, where the drinking age was made 21 in 1980.
MADD and other like-minded groups also cite numbers that show fewer young people are drinking now than in the mid-1980s. And while drunken driving deaths for the under-21 set still occur, they are happening less frequently than when 18-year-olds could buy alcohol.
Susan Wishnetsky is the secretary of Chicago-based Americans for a Society Free of Age Restrictions and believes those numbers are a product of selective memory.
"They single out particular age groups and particular periods of time that make their case and ignore others," she said. "What they don't mention is that the decrease in drunk driving has covered all age groups and accidents."
Seat belts, air bags, safe-driver courses and alcohol education programs are all factors contributing to lower numbers over the years. So spotlighting the age increase as the sole reason simply isn't fair, she said.
The argument comes down to civil rights versus human health.
The main support for why the drinking age is 21 versus 18 or any other age is medical research. The human brain doesn't stop developing until the early 20s. Drinking regularly before then can kill brain cells that never come back, said Sara Moscato, associate director of the Illinois Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Association.
"It wasn't an arbitrary number by any stretch of the imagination," she said.
Alex Koroknay-Palicz, executive director of the National Youth Rights Association, refutes that notion.
"Almost every other society and country around the planet has a lower drinking age than the U.S.," he said. "If the entire rest of the world is drinking before 21, and realistically, most Americans are as well, then all of us are brain-damaged."
Forbidden fruit
The 21 law has also created another problem seen more broadly during the age of Prohibition, said Ruth Engs, a professor of applied sciences at Indiana University.
"The bottom line is the 21-year-old purchase law has caused more problems related to alcohol abuse than it has prevented," she said.
Engs points to the forbidden fruit syndrome, which, she said, "has caused young adults to rebel against something they feel they are entitled to. If they can die for their country, vote, get married, sign contracts, why shouldn't they be allowed to drink?"
In Illinois, 18-year-olds can also buy cigarettes, get a hunting license and own an assault weapon. The criminalization of drinking under 21 compared to those other rights is exactly why people under 21 end up in the hospital for trying to down 21 shots on their 21st birthdays, Wishnetsky said. It's also why some youths binge-drink in secret before they turn 21.
"If you're going to commit crimes, you're not going to do it moderately," she said. "They figure they're already criminals, so they might as well behave like them. It's also a matter of opportunity. If it's more difficult to obtain alcohol, then once you get some, you have to take advantage of it to the fullest."
Brewing change
Few groups, if any, seem to advocate raising the voting or driving age to 21. The only solution to make the drinking law fair, youth rights groups say, is to lower or eliminate the age restrictions - and then trust parents and teens to make responsible choices in controlled situations.
In other words, don't allow 12-year-olds to buy a six-pack on the way home from middle school, but do allow a beer at home with Mom and Dad. At the college level, allow drinking in local bars and university-sponsored events, but no kegs in dorm rooms.
Achieving a lower drinking age, whatever the parameters, is not without a price tag.
Lowering the purchase age in Illinois, or any other state, means forfeiting federal transportation dollars. For Illinois, that would have cut a nearly $64 million hole in the state's purse in 2004.
That chunk of cash represents an abuse of federal power in the eyes of Bill Olson, executive vice president of the Associated Beer Distributors of Illinois.
"The biggest thing here from our standpoint is that this is the law of the land, and the federal government passed legislation that blackmailed the states into doing this," he said. "It's a controversy that's really beyond us as an alcohol beverage industry. It's for policy makers to decide."
Policy makers will continue to be pushed from both sides. Youth rights groups will watch Wisconsin and Vermont to begin a chain reaction of change.
"If alcohol is bad, and I believe that it is, then alcohol is bad for all people," Koroknay-Palicz said. "We believe alcohol is a problem and a vice, but the reason that we're in on this issue is equality. You can't single out young people. It's not fair."
Meanwhile, MADD and substance abuse groups will continue to chip away at the ways youths circumvent the age law.
Bars are the next frontier, said Moscato, of the Illinois Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Association. Far too many college town bars allow admission at 18, all but guaranteeing such customers will drink illegally once inside, she said. Keeping 21 the minimum purchase age is key to attacking addiction problems and giving parents a basis to push responsibility with their children and show them alcohol isn't necessary to have a good time.
"Maybe the 21 law isn't fair, but I don't know that I'm in the business of being fair when it comes to saving lives," Moscato said. "I'm not the fair queen. So I'm sorry if it's not fair, but it's right."
GRAPHIC: Key dates in drinking age laws
Jan. 1, 1980: Illinois establishes 21 as the minimum drinking age.
July 17, 1984: President Reagan signs National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which cuts off highway funds for states that don't set 21 as minimum drinking age.
Sept. 12, 1986: New state law revokes all driving privileges for a year or until driver turns 21, whichever is longer, for any person under 21 convicted of a second DUI.
Jan. 1, 1994: New state law suspends driving privileges for one year for drivers under age 21 caught illegally transporting alcohol. Driving privileges are revoked on the second offense.
Jan. 1, 1995: Illinois institutes "Use It & Lose It" law. Drivers under 21 caught with even a trace of alcohol in their systems lose their driving privileges.
Jan. 1, 2003: Local liquor commissioners ordered to report to the Secretary of State any conviction of a person under age 21 who buys, accepts, possesses or consumes alcohol. A violation results in a one-year suspension or revocation of driving privileges.
Source: Illinois Secretary of State
GRAPHIC: Other alcohol-related offenses
- Providing alcohol to a person under 21
- Parents or guardians allowing underage consumption of alcohol
- Hotel/motel employees renting rooms to someone under 21 and knowing alcoholic beverages will be consumed there
- A person 21 or older paying for a hotel room or facility knowing alcoholic beverages will be consumed there by underage individuals
Penalties: All of above are considered Class A misdemeanors with possible imprisonment for up to 1 year and fines of $500-$2,500. In addition, people over 21 paying for the hotel/motel room are liable for injuries or property damage caused by underage drinkers.
Source: Illinois Secretary of State
GRAPHIC: Underage drinking
- Alcohol is the No. 1 drug of choice for youths.
- Alcohol kills more young people than all other illicit drugs combined.
- In 2003, 2,283 people ages 15-20 were killed in alcohol-related traffic crashes, accounting for 36 percent of all traffic fatalities.
- All states prohibit possession and purchase of alcohol by those under 21, but 14 states allow consumption.
- Nearly 10 million drinkers in the United States are between the ages of 12 and 20.
Sources: Mothers Against Drunk Driving, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services
By: James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
If the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was a person, it would likely be headed out to a local bar tonight to celebrate.
Today is the 21st birthday of the law enacted by President Ronald Reagan that tied the drinking age to federal transportation dollars. States that didn't set their minimum purchase age at 21 lost their federal road money.
The idea was to help put the brakes on drunken driving deaths among 18- to 20-year-olds - those most likely to be in alcohol-related accidents.
Twenty-one years later, government agencies and substance abuse groups say the law has played a key role in saving thousands of lives. But youth rights groups, armed with studies from sympathetic college professors, tell a different tale of self-destruction brought on by a discriminatory law.
Why 21?
As the United States continues to send young people overseas to fight wars, some lawmakers are beginning to show signs of bending to the argument of "old enough to die for the country, old enough to drink."
Wisconsin is considering lowering the drinking age for military personnel. Vermont Gov. James Douglas has voiced support for lowering its drinking age to 18 if it passes the state legislature.
If either change happens, it'll be the first sign America is learning from a longstanding failure, Arlington Heights native Brad White believes.
A senior at the University of Missouri-Columbia, White is a former staff member of the National Youth Rights Association.
"I don't think our kids can learn responsibility by just giving them alcohol and saying 'OK, be responsible' when they hit 21," White said. "You don't hand a kid a car at 16 and tell them to go drive. You have to teach them."
Driving is a key component of the issue, with statistics cited on both sides to show the law has been both a success and a failure.
From 1993 to 2003, nearly 60,000 drivers under 21 in Illinois were arrested for driving with some amount of alcohol in their blood systems, according to the secretary of state's office. Drivers under 21 are still the single largest group involved in alcohol-related deaths.
That only counts the number of people who were caught.
"It does point to a problem with underage drinking," said Brad Fralick, adviser to Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White on DUI issues. "No one is disputing that underage drinking is going on. But no matter which end you're looking at, the law has certainly been a success."
The proof of success is in the 1,000 lives the drinking age has saved every year, said Susan McKinney, executive director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving in Illinois, where the drinking age was made 21 in 1980.
MADD and other like-minded groups also cite numbers that show fewer young people are drinking now than in the mid-1980s. And while drunken driving deaths for the under-21 set still occur, they are happening less frequently than when 18-year-olds could buy alcohol.
Susan Wishnetsky is the secretary of Chicago-based Americans for a Society Free of Age Restrictions and believes those numbers are a product of selective memory.
"They single out particular age groups and particular periods of time that make their case and ignore others," she said. "What they don't mention is that the decrease in drunk driving has covered all age groups and accidents."
Seat belts, air bags, safe-driver courses and alcohol education programs are all factors contributing to lower numbers over the years. So spotlighting the age increase as the sole reason simply isn't fair, she said.
The argument comes down to civil rights versus human health.
The main support for why the drinking age is 21 versus 18 or any other age is medical research. The human brain doesn't stop developing until the early 20s. Drinking regularly before then can kill brain cells that never come back, said Sara Moscato, associate director of the Illinois Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Association.
"It wasn't an arbitrary number by any stretch of the imagination," she said.
Alex Koroknay-Palicz, executive director of the National Youth Rights Association, refutes that notion.
"Almost every other society and country around the planet has a lower drinking age than the U.S.," he said. "If the entire rest of the world is drinking before 21, and realistically, most Americans are as well, then all of us are brain-damaged."
Forbidden fruit
The 21 law has also created another problem seen more broadly during the age of Prohibition, said Ruth Engs, a professor of applied sciences at Indiana University.
"The bottom line is the 21-year-old purchase law has caused more problems related to alcohol abuse than it has prevented," she said.
Engs points to the forbidden fruit syndrome, which, she said, "has caused young adults to rebel against something they feel they are entitled to. If they can die for their country, vote, get married, sign contracts, why shouldn't they be allowed to drink?"
In Illinois, 18-year-olds can also buy cigarettes, get a hunting license and own an assault weapon. The criminalization of drinking under 21 compared to those other rights is exactly why people under 21 end up in the hospital for trying to down 21 shots on their 21st birthdays, Wishnetsky said. It's also why some youths binge-drink in secret before they turn 21.
"If you're going to commit crimes, you're not going to do it moderately," she said. "They figure they're already criminals, so they might as well behave like them. It's also a matter of opportunity. If it's more difficult to obtain alcohol, then once you get some, you have to take advantage of it to the fullest."
Brewing change
Few groups, if any, seem to advocate raising the voting or driving age to 21. The only solution to make the drinking law fair, youth rights groups say, is to lower or eliminate the age restrictions - and then trust parents and teens to make responsible choices in controlled situations.
In other words, don't allow 12-year-olds to buy a six-pack on the way home from middle school, but do allow a beer at home with Mom and Dad. At the college level, allow drinking in local bars and university-sponsored events, but no kegs in dorm rooms.
Achieving a lower drinking age, whatever the parameters, is not without a price tag.
Lowering the purchase age in Illinois, or any other state, means forfeiting federal transportation dollars. For Illinois, that would have cut a nearly $64 million hole in the state's purse in 2004.
That chunk of cash represents an abuse of federal power in the eyes of Bill Olson, executive vice president of the Associated Beer Distributors of Illinois.
"The biggest thing here from our standpoint is that this is the law of the land, and the federal government passed legislation that blackmailed the states into doing this," he said. "It's a controversy that's really beyond us as an alcohol beverage industry. It's for policy makers to decide."
Policy makers will continue to be pushed from both sides. Youth rights groups will watch Wisconsin and Vermont to begin a chain reaction of change.
"If alcohol is bad, and I believe that it is, then alcohol is bad for all people," Koroknay-Palicz said. "We believe alcohol is a problem and a vice, but the reason that we're in on this issue is equality. You can't single out young people. It's not fair."
Meanwhile, MADD and substance abuse groups will continue to chip away at the ways youths circumvent the age law.
Bars are the next frontier, said Moscato, of the Illinois Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Association. Far too many college town bars allow admission at 18, all but guaranteeing such customers will drink illegally once inside, she said. Keeping 21 the minimum purchase age is key to attacking addiction problems and giving parents a basis to push responsibility with their children and show them alcohol isn't necessary to have a good time.
"Maybe the 21 law isn't fair, but I don't know that I'm in the business of being fair when it comes to saving lives," Moscato said. "I'm not the fair queen. So I'm sorry if it's not fair, but it's right."
GRAPHIC: Key dates in drinking age laws
Jan. 1, 1980: Illinois establishes 21 as the minimum drinking age.
July 17, 1984: President Reagan signs National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which cuts off highway funds for states that don't set 21 as minimum drinking age.
Sept. 12, 1986: New state law revokes all driving privileges for a year or until driver turns 21, whichever is longer, for any person under 21 convicted of a second DUI.
Jan. 1, 1994: New state law suspends driving privileges for one year for drivers under age 21 caught illegally transporting alcohol. Driving privileges are revoked on the second offense.
Jan. 1, 1995: Illinois institutes "Use It & Lose It" law. Drivers under 21 caught with even a trace of alcohol in their systems lose their driving privileges.
Jan. 1, 2003: Local liquor commissioners ordered to report to the Secretary of State any conviction of a person under age 21 who buys, accepts, possesses or consumes alcohol. A violation results in a one-year suspension or revocation of driving privileges.
Source: Illinois Secretary of State
GRAPHIC: Other alcohol-related offenses
- Providing alcohol to a person under 21
- Parents or guardians allowing underage consumption of alcohol
- Hotel/motel employees renting rooms to someone under 21 and knowing alcoholic beverages will be consumed there
- A person 21 or older paying for a hotel room or facility knowing alcoholic beverages will be consumed there by underage individuals
Penalties: All of above are considered Class A misdemeanors with possible imprisonment for up to 1 year and fines of $500-$2,500. In addition, people over 21 paying for the hotel/motel room are liable for injuries or property damage caused by underage drinkers.
Source: Illinois Secretary of State
GRAPHIC: Underage drinking
- Alcohol is the No. 1 drug of choice for youths.
- Alcohol kills more young people than all other illicit drugs combined.
- In 2003, 2,283 people ages 15-20 were killed in alcohol-related traffic crashes, accounting for 36 percent of all traffic fatalities.
- All states prohibit possession and purchase of alcohol by those under 21, but 14 states allow consumption.
- Nearly 10 million drinkers in the United States are between the ages of 12 and 20.
Sources: Mothers Against Drunk Driving, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services
(Part 4 of 4 parts) Reuniting a family
August 13 2003
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
With a not-guilty plea on Tuesday, Sonia Galindo set in motion a trial she hopes will justify her actions in the hearts of her boys, if not in eyes of the law.
Galindo is accused of abducting her two sons, Bryan and Sean, and fleeing to Mexico in violation of a custody decree. She is charged with two counts of felony child abduction.
For two years she was an FBI fugitive with four felony warrants out for her arrest. With her Mexican citizenship, a right also transferred to her sons, she remained beyond the grasp of U.S. law enforcement. In April, with promises of leniency, Galindo brought her sons back to the United States.
She's regretted it ever since.
According to Galindo, leniency comes with the price of selling out her sons. She said authorities pitched two years of supervision and 200 hours of community service in exchange for her guilty plea and a statement saying she fabricated charges of abuse against their father, Don Anderson. She would also have to admit that she took the boys against their will and rat out the people who helped her escape the country.
The price is simply too high, she said, and she intends to reject the deal.
"My boys didn't lie, and I didn't lie either," Galindo said while choking through tears in a phone interview. "I'm not going to lie now. I'm not going to pin something on my sons. I'd rather spend the rest of my life in jail."
Galindo, 48, faces up to three years in prison if convicted.
Those charges stem from a series of incidents starting with the divorce of Galindo and Anderson in 1996. The couple initially shared custody of the boys, but court documents show Galindo didn't live up to her end of the deal.
Bryan and Sean missed appointments, school and church. Fed up by the violations of the divorce decree, Anderson took Galindo back to court and won sole custody.
That's when Galindo filed charges against Anderson, alleging that he physically abused Bryan and Sean. But Galindo's changing accounts of the abuse combined with what police describe as "spoon-fed" testimony from Bryan that his father beat him on several occasions made authorities suspicious. The stories never matched, and there was never any physical evidence, according to police. The court dismissed all the charges against Anderson.
In defeat, Galindo took the boys on her visitation weekend and bolted across the border.
Galindo stands by her abuse allegations.
"If he had been a good father, I never would have taken them out of the country," Galindo said. "The reason I took them was because they were going to kill themselves. They were going to throw themselves in front of a train.
"I know taking them out of the country was wrong," she said. "I just felt like I needed to do it. My boys are alive today because of me. The boys know why I did it."
Anderson said Galindo's outcry is a ploy for public sympathy with no basis in fact.
He said that when the boys returned from Mexico in April, they were in poor health. They lacked basic immunizations, dental care and were so distraught they were taking anti-depressants. Visits to the doctor and dentist corrected the health issues, and they are no longer taking medication.
Now, Anderson reports, Bryan and Sean are in summer school to get a head start on their fall classes.
Bryan, 13, will enter eighth grade at Daniel Wright Junior High School in Lincolnshire-Prairie View Elementary District 103. Anderson said Bryan has found a love for language and hopes to study French, Spanish and Italian. Sean, 15, will be a sophomore at Stevenson High School, having earned high B's in biology over the summer.
Galindo is barred from any contact with Anderson or her sons.. It's a brutal reality for her as she awaits the outcome of her case while living with her sister in Vernon Hills, barely a mile from where Anderson lives with the boys. Future contact will depend largely on the outcome of her trial.
Galindo said she fears for her sons' safety but doesn't think Anderson would hurt them while the case is in the spotlight.
Anderson said he refuses to get into a slander competition with Galindo. He just wants it all to be over.
That process begins Sept. 22, with the start of Galindo's trial. First, she'll have a status hearing on Sept. 10.
Galindo is already convinced she'll go to prison. She said law officers and Anderson duped her into coming back to the United States with false promises. She said she wasn't given an attorney or read her rights when initially taken into custody by the FBI and Buffalo Grove police.
Galindo has little money and said the public defense attorneys appointed to her have shown little interest in her case. With help from her family, she has now hired her own attorney, Steven Messner of Wilmette. Galindo still isn't convinced she'll receive adequate representation at the trial.
Messner said he was unaware of Galindo's comments to the press, but he was still investigating the facts of the case.
"I think the facts go further than what's apparent," Messner said, but would not elaborate.
Buffalo Grove police did not return phone requests for interviews Tuesday.
Galindo said she's not concerned about the consequences of her public comments or how people perceive her. She said she's ready to face whatever happens as long as she can hold onto the possibility that someday, Bryan and Sean will be back in her life.
"I know what I am," Galindo said. "I'm not perfect. I've made mistakes, but I'm a good mother. I don't want my sons to ever think I used them to bargain with. I know someday, when they're older, they'll come back to me."
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
With a not-guilty plea on Tuesday, Sonia Galindo set in motion a trial she hopes will justify her actions in the hearts of her boys, if not in eyes of the law.
Galindo is accused of abducting her two sons, Bryan and Sean, and fleeing to Mexico in violation of a custody decree. She is charged with two counts of felony child abduction.
For two years she was an FBI fugitive with four felony warrants out for her arrest. With her Mexican citizenship, a right also transferred to her sons, she remained beyond the grasp of U.S. law enforcement. In April, with promises of leniency, Galindo brought her sons back to the United States.
She's regretted it ever since.
According to Galindo, leniency comes with the price of selling out her sons. She said authorities pitched two years of supervision and 200 hours of community service in exchange for her guilty plea and a statement saying she fabricated charges of abuse against their father, Don Anderson. She would also have to admit that she took the boys against their will and rat out the people who helped her escape the country.
The price is simply too high, she said, and she intends to reject the deal.
"My boys didn't lie, and I didn't lie either," Galindo said while choking through tears in a phone interview. "I'm not going to lie now. I'm not going to pin something on my sons. I'd rather spend the rest of my life in jail."
Galindo, 48, faces up to three years in prison if convicted.
Those charges stem from a series of incidents starting with the divorce of Galindo and Anderson in 1996. The couple initially shared custody of the boys, but court documents show Galindo didn't live up to her end of the deal.
Bryan and Sean missed appointments, school and church. Fed up by the violations of the divorce decree, Anderson took Galindo back to court and won sole custody.
That's when Galindo filed charges against Anderson, alleging that he physically abused Bryan and Sean. But Galindo's changing accounts of the abuse combined with what police describe as "spoon-fed" testimony from Bryan that his father beat him on several occasions made authorities suspicious. The stories never matched, and there was never any physical evidence, according to police. The court dismissed all the charges against Anderson.
In defeat, Galindo took the boys on her visitation weekend and bolted across the border.
Galindo stands by her abuse allegations.
"If he had been a good father, I never would have taken them out of the country," Galindo said. "The reason I took them was because they were going to kill themselves. They were going to throw themselves in front of a train.
"I know taking them out of the country was wrong," she said. "I just felt like I needed to do it. My boys are alive today because of me. The boys know why I did it."
Anderson said Galindo's outcry is a ploy for public sympathy with no basis in fact.
He said that when the boys returned from Mexico in April, they were in poor health. They lacked basic immunizations, dental care and were so distraught they were taking anti-depressants. Visits to the doctor and dentist corrected the health issues, and they are no longer taking medication.
Now, Anderson reports, Bryan and Sean are in summer school to get a head start on their fall classes.
Bryan, 13, will enter eighth grade at Daniel Wright Junior High School in Lincolnshire-Prairie View Elementary District 103. Anderson said Bryan has found a love for language and hopes to study French, Spanish and Italian. Sean, 15, will be a sophomore at Stevenson High School, having earned high B's in biology over the summer.
Galindo is barred from any contact with Anderson or her sons.. It's a brutal reality for her as she awaits the outcome of her case while living with her sister in Vernon Hills, barely a mile from where Anderson lives with the boys. Future contact will depend largely on the outcome of her trial.
Galindo said she fears for her sons' safety but doesn't think Anderson would hurt them while the case is in the spotlight.
Anderson said he refuses to get into a slander competition with Galindo. He just wants it all to be over.
That process begins Sept. 22, with the start of Galindo's trial. First, she'll have a status hearing on Sept. 10.
Galindo is already convinced she'll go to prison. She said law officers and Anderson duped her into coming back to the United States with false promises. She said she wasn't given an attorney or read her rights when initially taken into custody by the FBI and Buffalo Grove police.
Galindo has little money and said the public defense attorneys appointed to her have shown little interest in her case. With help from her family, she has now hired her own attorney, Steven Messner of Wilmette. Galindo still isn't convinced she'll receive adequate representation at the trial.
Messner said he was unaware of Galindo's comments to the press, but he was still investigating the facts of the case.
"I think the facts go further than what's apparent," Messner said, but would not elaborate.
Buffalo Grove police did not return phone requests for interviews Tuesday.
Galindo said she's not concerned about the consequences of her public comments or how people perceive her. She said she's ready to face whatever happens as long as she can hold onto the possibility that someday, Bryan and Sean will be back in her life.
"I know what I am," Galindo said. "I'm not perfect. I've made mistakes, but I'm a good mother. I don't want my sons to ever think I used them to bargain with. I know someday, when they're older, they'll come back to me."
(Part 3 of 4 parts) Reuniting a family
April 25 2003
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
The worst nightmare for all parents is to have their children stolen from them and not be able to do anything about it. Every thought, every dream that follows is about getting them back.
On Thursday night, Don Anderson's nightmare ended and all the dreams became reality. His sons were back home in Vernon Hills.
"It just shows if you keep plugging along and pray and have faith, the system does work," Anderson tearfully said earlier Thursday. "Right now, they start life all over again and I get to do what I do best. Being a dad, that's what I do best in life."
Bryan was 10 and Sean was 12 when they were kidnapped by their mother, Sonia Galindo, and taken to Mexico.
The kidnapping followed a calamitous divorce in 1996. Galindo and Anderson initially shared custody, but Galindo couldn't live up to her end of the agreement. The boys missed appointments, school and church, and her violations of the divorce decree stockpiled. The courts eventually awarded Anderson sole custody, citing Galindo's documented history of poor parenting skills and erratic behavior.
That's when authorities say Galindo began an intricate slander campaign against Anderson, going so far as to file false abuse charges against him. Galindo's ever-changing accounts of the abuse met with seemingly spoon-fed testimony from Bryan, and all the charges were dropped. In defeat, Galindo kidnapped the boys and bolted to Mexico.
With the Mexican government viewing them as citizens because of Galindo's dual-citizen status, it seemed like Anderson would never get his boys back. Only 4 percent of U.S. children abducted and taken to Mexico ever return.
After 2 1/2 years and more than $200,000 of Anderson's money spent for private investigators and legal translations, and endless lobbying of foreign governments and negotiating through police and the FBI, Galindo surrendered to agents at 1 p.m. Thursday at O'Hare International Airport.
Police had agreed to lobby the courts for no jail time in exchange for Galindo's return. She faced four felony warrants for the abduction.
Now may be the beginning of a happy ending.
Galindo, a former Buffalo Grove resident, will have to go through a court process in order to see her sons again. Prosecutors will push for psychiatric counseling and supervised visitation. In the meantime, she'll live with family in Vernon Hills while out on bond.
Buffalo Grove police also will decide whether to go after the people who helped Galindo kidnap the boys and assist her while she was in Mexico.
As for the boys, now 13 and 14, their road back is longest of all. A recent conversation the boys had with their father revealed some negative feelings for him. Psychologists say they and their father must work through any falsehoods Galindo fed them while they were away. Beyond that, they have to get to know their father all over again.
Anderson said he's ready for the challenge.
He's spent the past few days shopping for all the things they love like snacks, ice cream and Fruity Pebbles. He set up the trampoline in the yard again. Their rooms are ready. The basement he converted into a recreation room specifically for their return will finally be used.
All the photos of the good times they had are on the walls. Family and old friends from their days at Daniel Wright Junior High in Lincolnshire-Prairie View District 103 are on standby for when Bryan and Sean are ready to see them.
Anderson wants the boys to be able to see their mother again when she's ready and the boys fully understand what happened to them.
It will take a lot of counseling and quality time with their father before that understanding develops.
"It's been such a horrific two and a half years," Anderson said before meeting up with his sons again. "When I see them, I'm just going to want to hug them. I realize I might not get that right away. They might call me names. They might scream and yell, but that's OK. When they walk in that door, I'm here for them.
"I've got my sights set on tomorrow, the next day and six months from now," he continued. "I'm dealing with the heat of the day now, but I know it's going to be a beautiful night."
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
The worst nightmare for all parents is to have their children stolen from them and not be able to do anything about it. Every thought, every dream that follows is about getting them back.
On Thursday night, Don Anderson's nightmare ended and all the dreams became reality. His sons were back home in Vernon Hills.
"It just shows if you keep plugging along and pray and have faith, the system does work," Anderson tearfully said earlier Thursday. "Right now, they start life all over again and I get to do what I do best. Being a dad, that's what I do best in life."
Bryan was 10 and Sean was 12 when they were kidnapped by their mother, Sonia Galindo, and taken to Mexico.
The kidnapping followed a calamitous divorce in 1996. Galindo and Anderson initially shared custody, but Galindo couldn't live up to her end of the agreement. The boys missed appointments, school and church, and her violations of the divorce decree stockpiled. The courts eventually awarded Anderson sole custody, citing Galindo's documented history of poor parenting skills and erratic behavior.
That's when authorities say Galindo began an intricate slander campaign against Anderson, going so far as to file false abuse charges against him. Galindo's ever-changing accounts of the abuse met with seemingly spoon-fed testimony from Bryan, and all the charges were dropped. In defeat, Galindo kidnapped the boys and bolted to Mexico.
With the Mexican government viewing them as citizens because of Galindo's dual-citizen status, it seemed like Anderson would never get his boys back. Only 4 percent of U.S. children abducted and taken to Mexico ever return.
After 2 1/2 years and more than $200,000 of Anderson's money spent for private investigators and legal translations, and endless lobbying of foreign governments and negotiating through police and the FBI, Galindo surrendered to agents at 1 p.m. Thursday at O'Hare International Airport.
Police had agreed to lobby the courts for no jail time in exchange for Galindo's return. She faced four felony warrants for the abduction.
Now may be the beginning of a happy ending.
Galindo, a former Buffalo Grove resident, will have to go through a court process in order to see her sons again. Prosecutors will push for psychiatric counseling and supervised visitation. In the meantime, she'll live with family in Vernon Hills while out on bond.
Buffalo Grove police also will decide whether to go after the people who helped Galindo kidnap the boys and assist her while she was in Mexico.
As for the boys, now 13 and 14, their road back is longest of all. A recent conversation the boys had with their father revealed some negative feelings for him. Psychologists say they and their father must work through any falsehoods Galindo fed them while they were away. Beyond that, they have to get to know their father all over again.
Anderson said he's ready for the challenge.
He's spent the past few days shopping for all the things they love like snacks, ice cream and Fruity Pebbles. He set up the trampoline in the yard again. Their rooms are ready. The basement he converted into a recreation room specifically for their return will finally be used.
All the photos of the good times they had are on the walls. Family and old friends from their days at Daniel Wright Junior High in Lincolnshire-Prairie View District 103 are on standby for when Bryan and Sean are ready to see them.
Anderson wants the boys to be able to see their mother again when she's ready and the boys fully understand what happened to them.
It will take a lot of counseling and quality time with their father before that understanding develops.
"It's been such a horrific two and a half years," Anderson said before meeting up with his sons again. "When I see them, I'm just going to want to hug them. I realize I might not get that right away. They might call me names. They might scream and yell, but that's OK. When they walk in that door, I'm here for them.
"I've got my sights set on tomorrow, the next day and six months from now," he continued. "I'm dealing with the heat of the day now, but I know it's going to be a beautiful night."
(Part 2 of 4 parts) Reuniting a family
April 06 2003
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
After two years of living with no more than memories of his missing children, Don Anderson finally received a taste of all he's prayed for. Yet even the pleasure of hearing his sons' voices came with pain.
On the heels of a Daily Herald report about Anderson's quest for his kidnapped boys, he received two phone calls from the woman who took them. Anderson said his ex-wife Sonia Galindo called from Mexico to tell him she made a mistake in taking Bryan and Sean. She wants to come back to the United States with the boys.
The former students in Lincolnshire-Prairie View District 103 are now 13 and 14 years old. They were 10 and 12 when Galindo kidnapped them.
It's everything Anderson wants and works for, a dream come true. Perhaps too good to be true.
To come back, Galindo, a former Buffalo Grove resident, wants all charges against her dropped. She faces four felony warrants as an FBI fugitive. She also wants her job as a teacher in the Chicago Public School system back. To cap it off, she wants money from Anderson to make the return trip.
"It was a two-sided feeling hearing from her," Anderson said. "There is a consideration that she'll make a deal and we'll get them back. But at the same time, it's psychological warfare going on. I think her dealing is really a scam."
If it is, Anderson and police handling the case said it won't be the first time she's duped those around her.
Galindo didn't have legal or even joint custody of the boys when she abducted them. To even get near them, she filed charges against Anderson, claiming he had abused Sean and Bryan at his Vernon Hills home. Courts dismissed all the charges and police believe those charges were lies Galindo developed with help from at least two people with intimate knowledge of the law and its loopholes.
Police now are building a case against those two individuals and hope to bring charges soon.
As far as Galindo, Buffalo Grove Police Officer John Heidersheidt said the goal is to get her communicating and work out a way to have Sean and Bryan returned to the United States.
Heidersheidt said he wants to make the transition as painless as possible for Galindo and the boys to come back. That's why he'll push for her to stay out of jail if she returns.
"We don't want to create a negative impact on the children," he said. "We want to bring her back to the United States and help her get her life back in order so her children can have a normal life. You can't have that with mom in jail."
The last contact with Galindo was several weeks ago. As of that conversation, police halted investigations against her accomplices in the kidnapping because they believed the goal of bringing her and the boys back was near. Charges against those accomplices would not be necessary if Sonia and the boys returned voluntarily, Heidersheidt said.
Now that Galindo is back in hiding, the march toward prosecuting the accomplices will continue.
"It's incredibly frustrating," Heidersheidt said. "Her outright refusal to talk is certainly not looking very positive in her light.
"These warrants will never go away," he continued. "They will be there when the boys are 18 and can go and do whatever they want. Authorities will catch up to her sooner or later, with or without the boys. If she doesn't turn herself in and law enforcement finds her, there's going to be nothing but a bad outcome for her and a bad impact on those boys."
Police encourage local people with information on Bryan and Sean's whereabouts to come forward with information.
Anderson remains hopeful he'll see Bryan and Sean again.
"The setting they are in is almost like hostages," Anderson said. "Talking to them was great, but it was also horrible. At least they heard my voice and they know that I love them and miss them."
How to help ...
If you have information on the Anderson case contact:
Buffalo Grove police officer John Heidersheidt at (847) 459-2560.
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
After two years of living with no more than memories of his missing children, Don Anderson finally received a taste of all he's prayed for. Yet even the pleasure of hearing his sons' voices came with pain.
On the heels of a Daily Herald report about Anderson's quest for his kidnapped boys, he received two phone calls from the woman who took them. Anderson said his ex-wife Sonia Galindo called from Mexico to tell him she made a mistake in taking Bryan and Sean. She wants to come back to the United States with the boys.
The former students in Lincolnshire-Prairie View District 103 are now 13 and 14 years old. They were 10 and 12 when Galindo kidnapped them.
It's everything Anderson wants and works for, a dream come true. Perhaps too good to be true.
To come back, Galindo, a former Buffalo Grove resident, wants all charges against her dropped. She faces four felony warrants as an FBI fugitive. She also wants her job as a teacher in the Chicago Public School system back. To cap it off, she wants money from Anderson to make the return trip.
"It was a two-sided feeling hearing from her," Anderson said. "There is a consideration that she'll make a deal and we'll get them back. But at the same time, it's psychological warfare going on. I think her dealing is really a scam."
If it is, Anderson and police handling the case said it won't be the first time she's duped those around her.
Galindo didn't have legal or even joint custody of the boys when she abducted them. To even get near them, she filed charges against Anderson, claiming he had abused Sean and Bryan at his Vernon Hills home. Courts dismissed all the charges and police believe those charges were lies Galindo developed with help from at least two people with intimate knowledge of the law and its loopholes.
Police now are building a case against those two individuals and hope to bring charges soon.
As far as Galindo, Buffalo Grove Police Officer John Heidersheidt said the goal is to get her communicating and work out a way to have Sean and Bryan returned to the United States.
Heidersheidt said he wants to make the transition as painless as possible for Galindo and the boys to come back. That's why he'll push for her to stay out of jail if she returns.
"We don't want to create a negative impact on the children," he said. "We want to bring her back to the United States and help her get her life back in order so her children can have a normal life. You can't have that with mom in jail."
The last contact with Galindo was several weeks ago. As of that conversation, police halted investigations against her accomplices in the kidnapping because they believed the goal of bringing her and the boys back was near. Charges against those accomplices would not be necessary if Sonia and the boys returned voluntarily, Heidersheidt said.
Now that Galindo is back in hiding, the march toward prosecuting the accomplices will continue.
"It's incredibly frustrating," Heidersheidt said. "Her outright refusal to talk is certainly not looking very positive in her light.
"These warrants will never go away," he continued. "They will be there when the boys are 18 and can go and do whatever they want. Authorities will catch up to her sooner or later, with or without the boys. If she doesn't turn herself in and law enforcement finds her, there's going to be nothing but a bad outcome for her and a bad impact on those boys."
Police encourage local people with information on Bryan and Sean's whereabouts to come forward with information.
Anderson remains hopeful he'll see Bryan and Sean again.
"The setting they are in is almost like hostages," Anderson said. "Talking to them was great, but it was also horrible. At least they heard my voice and they know that I love them and miss them."
How to help ...
If you have information on the Anderson case contact:
Buffalo Grove police officer John Heidersheidt at (847) 459-2560.
(Part 1 of 4 parts) Reuniting a family
February 10 2003
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
Cold sweat soaks Don Anderson's sheets. Then the nightly dream of lost time and uncertainty jars him awake. Anderson's heart pounds as his mind revisits the same torturous possibilities as yesterday and all the days before and still winds up with the same non-answers.
It's 4 a.m. Time to find his children.
His life is wrought with coping and hoping, seeking and finding just enough to torment and prolong.
"You can't talk to your kids," Anderson said of the not knowing. "You can't see them. You don't even know what they look like. You hang on to all their stuff, hoping they're going to be back, but you don't know."
They were 10 and 12 the last time he saw them, at their Vernon Hills home. Now Bryan and Sean are 13 and 14. He's spent $200,000 and at least four hours a day over the course of those missed birthdays trying to bring them home. Anderson has spent more than a year traipsing through Mexico and the halls of Congress, yet Bryan and Sean remain ghosts to him. But they didn't disappear on their own.
This is what happens when your children are stolen.
Divorce, disappearance
After a divorce in 1996, Anderson and his ex-wife, Sonia Galindo, shared custody of Sean and Bryan. But Galindo, who had moved to Buffalo Grove, couldn't live up to her end of the bargain. The boys missed appointments, school and church. Her violations of a divorce deal stockpiled, resulting in court-appointed mediation. Both the mediator and a conciliator recommended Anderson receive sole custody of the children because of Galindo's behavior problems and lack of parenting skills.
By 1999, Anderson had sole custody of the boys in Vernon Hills. Galindo had visitation with child support obligations.
The war began.
Police and Anderson believe that's when Galindo decided Sean and Bryan would be with her no matter what.
"She started to blame me because the kids weren't with her," Anderson said. "It didn't look good for her image. People thought something was wrong with her, and she didn't want anybody to think something was wrong. Without the kids, she was nobody. I was threatening that piece of her."
On the last day of Sean and Bryan's 2000 summer vacation from Daniel Wright Junior High in Lincolnshire-Prairie View, Anderson waited for a return that never came. Just a few months before, police accused Galindo of taking Sean and Bryan out of the state during Anderson's designated custody time and without his permission.
Anderson thought Galindo had snatched them again. Until the police called.
Galindo had filed police reports saying Anderson physically and sexually abused Bryan. The report alone necessitated an investigation, and Galindo secured an order of protection against Anderson to keep him from Sean and Bryan.
Police said the charges against Anderson quickly unraveled through lack of evidence. Anderson said Galindo's ever-changing accounts of the abuse met with seemingly spoon-fed testimony against Anderson from Bryan.
Anderson received visitation while the investigation continued. But police say Galindo took the boys and bolted to Mexico. Galindo is now an FBI fugitive with four felony warrants. Police say evidence shows she fabricated the abuse allegations.
A parent's nightmare
It's a similar story for thousands of parents in the United States each year. Various reports estimate the number of cases of parents abducting children from other parents in the United States ranges from 200 a day to 350,000 a year. In many of those, children are taken to foreign countries.
For those children, Mexico is often a black hole destination. More abducted children are taken to Mexico than any other country, according to a 2001 compliance report on the Hague Convention. The 1980 convention set in place international rules to follow in abduction cases. Nearly 25 years later, Mexico lacks full compliance.
The report shows the State Department taking as many as 36 separate actions to get a child back from Mexico to no avail.
Stuart Patt, a spokesman for the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs, said getting a child back depends mainly on the foreign country's receptiveness to the United States' view that a child living there was abducted.
"Ultimately, it's going to be the determination of that country's officials and courts as to what's going to happen," Patt said.
Guillermo Galarza of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said that reality can be a nightmare for desperate parents.
While 70 percent of Mexican children abducted to the United States are returned, only 3 to 4 percent of U.S. kids come back from Mexico, he said. Asked about that imbalance, Patt said the Mexican government is improving, but "there's still some work to do."
Working under the Hague Convention can be slow and frustrating in Mexico, said the National Center's Galarza.
Nothing Anderson has in place in the United States will necessarily help him. He has the added burden of Galindo's dual-nationality, a status conveyed to his sons by birth.
"To the Mexican government, these kids are from Mexico," Galarza said. "The custody decree doesn't mean anything in Mexico. It doesn't mean a nickel."
The Hague Convention itself can be an obstacle. For instance, the fact that criminal charges await Galindo in the United States can be a deterrent because the Mexican government might view her imprisonment as an emotional harm against Sean and Bryan.
Not only that, but as soon as the boys logged a full year in Mexico, returning them to America became a judge's discretionary matter, rather than an automatic. Foreign courts often believe a year spent in a new place creates ties that can be traumatic to undo for a child.
Police say abducting parents, including Galindo, often file a special appeal in Mexico called an "amparo" when a Hague order to return a child to the United States is issued. The appeal claims a violation of constitutional rights that must be examined, often dragging the case beyond the year time frame for automatic return of a child to the United States.
With all these roadblocks, cases that should only take a couple weeks to resolve in a perfect situation can take years.
That's when some parents lose patience and try to re-abduct their children from the original snatcher.
"We don't recommend parents do that," Galarza said. "You're breaking the laws in that other country. Not only that, there's the emotion of being abducted again. Usually the abducting parent has told the children many things about the other parent to create hatred. When a child has been told that their dad is evil and all of a sudden he takes them, that's very traumatic."
All that's left: memories
Don Anderson understands that trauma. He has some of his own.
Bryan and Sean's clothes, toys and rooms are untouched. He's converted his Vernon Hills basement into a teen recreation room for the boys. There will be something waiting to receive them when his sons return. If they return.
Anderson's children have never contacted him. Are they unable to? Have they been brainwashed? Do they hate him? Do they think he hates them?
It's a daily question roulette Anderson plays. He's done everything the laws and guidelines say he should do to bring his children back. No results.
Because the boys are believed to have been taken from Galindo's Buffalo Grove home, that town's police are in charge of the investigation. Even with 19 years on the force, Buffalo Grove officer John Heidersheidt said he's never had a case quite like Anderson's.
Galindo's family living in the area won't tell Heidersheidt anything. Her sister doesn't respond to interview requests. There is no local funding for Heidersheidt to follow leads in Texas. Now, he's not even sure where Galindo and the kids are.
"It's real tough," Heidersheidt said. "They could have changed their names, gotten false identification. She's basically kind of disappeared off the face of the earth. We need information desperately."
Anderson lives for that information. When he's angry, he builds information packets for congressmen. Basketball gives him an outlet for his aggression. He allows himself a set amount of time, no more than 15 minutes a day, to cry.
Anderson's mindset is even open to Galindo remaining in his sons' lives. All just to have them in his life rather than haunting it.
"If she comes back, I won't prosecute her," he said. "She's their mother. What she did was really wrong, illegal, horrible, but it's up to her to get help. It's not up to me to punish her. I just want to get the kids back so they can live a happy and healthy life."
If you have information on the Anderson case, call:
- Buffalo Grove Police Department: (847) 459-2560
- National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: (877) 446-2632
- Buffalo Grove Police Department: (847) 459-2560
- National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: (877) 446-2632
Monday
(Health/Education feature) Living, learning with autism
Sunday January 23 2005
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
Jordan Brunett showed all the qualities of an extraordinary mind at a young age.
At 3, he could name the U.S. presidents in chronological order. He knew all the planets in the solar system. He could count in Spanish.
Yet his mother, Rhonda, sensed there was something not quite right about her son. She had trouble getting his attention. He wouldn't play with other kids. He would sit with a pile of blocks in front of him, swinging each one from ear to ear for hours.
The Carol Stream mom shed many tears of frustration before discovering the cause of her son's behavior. The diagnosis came at a preschool screening just before his third birthday.
Jordan, now 12, is autistic.
After getting over the initial bewilderment, Brunett's next step was figuring out how her son could best be educated.
On a larger level, it's the same struggle schools in Illinois are facing as they see the number of autistic students grow yearly.
According to the state board of education, there are about 7,000 autistic children in Illinois schools, up from 2,305 seven years ago. The same trend can be seen in local school systems.
In Palatine Township Elementary District 15, for instance, the autistic population has doubled in the last five years to about 80 students. Lombard Elementary District 44 has gone from seven to 16 autistic children in a similar time. In Arlington Heights Elementary District 25, growing numbers of autistic children prompted the administration to look at adding a class just for them to augment intensive services already provided.
While experts and lay people alike debate why, educators are working to secure the training and money to meet the demand and the special needs of autistic children.
Jordan Brunett was lucky. His early diagnosis began a process that resulted in an individualized learning plan.
"The school knew what to do," Rhonda Brunett said. "They had that knowledge, but I didn't know anything. So I started to educate myself."
One of the challenges of educating autistic children is that each is different. The syndrome is a lifelong disability that can involve trouble with learning abstract concepts, communication problems, emotional meltdowns when a routine is changed and social isolation.
At Jordan's school, Elsie Johnson in Hanover Park, special education teacher Angelina Summers first came upon autism by chance. While studying to be a mainstream teacher, she had no training in autism until her first student-teaching job.
"I saw a kid who clearly wasn't like the others," she said. "I asked the teacher, and she said, 'Oh, that's autism.' I was like, 'What is that?'"
Now Summers has a class of nine early childhood special-needs students, some of whom are autistic. The current growth of autism has her preparing for up to three more students next year.
Summers' classroom is decorated in brightly colored ABCs and 1-2-3s. Without the students, it's indistinguishable from a "regular" classroom. Yet the class instruction is noticeably different.
Summers doesn't stand in front of the room lecturing to students in desks. Mostly, she sits at a little table with one student at a time while her five aides work with the other kids.
Autistic children can be over-stimulated by large groups and are sometimes uncomfortable sitting near others. For some, a light touch can feel like a slap. A hug can be smothering. A slight flicker of a light can entrance.
In Summers' class, each activity has a picture associated with it to help guide students through the day. Visual aids are nearly a necessity.
"If I were to go a whole day with some kids and not use a single picture, it would be a rough day for some of them," she said.
Meltdown Control
Some people unfamiliar with autism may associate the disorder only with what's known as the meltdown. That might occur when an autistic child is pushed too hard too fast, and the mind becomes jumbled.
"Everyone has warning signs," Summers said. "If you choose to ignore those little sparks, you're going to have a big fire on your hands. If you keep pushing, eventually you'll see the kid with their head on the table not doing anything."
It's not because autistic students are disobedient. Their minds just don't work the same way as other children's.
Despite the challenges, it's not uncommon for autistic children to be placed in regular classes, often with aides.
Others can't function in regular classes. For instance, about 40 percent of children with autism don't speak, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"These are smart kids," Summers said. "I treat them like normal kids because, in my mind, they are. You can't completely define a child by their difficult moments."
Just defining a child as autistic can be a struggle. Meeting the needs of high-functioning autistic children can be particularly tricky because their learning is very similar to "regular" students, but their social behaviors are different.
Teachers often sit on the front line in spotting such disorders, since autism can easily be confused with behavior problems. Teachers who aren't trained to spot the disorder can make the same mistake.
Wendy Williams remembers teachers having little patience when her son started school.
"I actually had a teacher come up to me and say he was annoying, and if I didn't do anything ... he was never going to amount to anything," the Wheaton mother said.
Like Jordan, Williams' son displayed talents early, walking at 9 1/2 months, reading on his own at 3. His thirst for knowledge was such that she had him in four different preschool programs to keep him busy.
"I thought the kid was a genius," Williams said.
But odd behavior was there, too. He was afraid to walk barefoot on grass. Loud noises caused extreme trauma. He wouldn't play with other kids.
At 6, he was misdiagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder and placed on medication, to which he had a severe reaction. Eventually, tests confirmed what Williams' own research led her to believe: Her son, now 9, had Asperger's syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism.
"I always thought something was missing because everything the doctors were doing was not working," she said.
Suburban educators are working to prevent repeats of Williams' story while also cringing about past students written off or misdiagnosed.
Disorder old and new
Autism was first described in the 1940s, according to the Autism Society of America. But many educators are only becoming familiar with it as autistic students come into their schools in larger numbers.
"At least now we're recognizing it as a disability," said Naperville Unit District 203's Kitty Murphy, assistant superintendent for special education. "Hindsight is 20/20, but we try not to look back. We try to look forward."
Looking forward is going to look a lot like the recent past, she said. The district doesn't have a full count, but Murphy said it's had about 40 more autistic kids enroll every year since the 2000-01 school year.
That isn't uncommon.
Elgin Area School District U-46's autism numbers have grown to 140 children, large enough for the district to host a weeklong summer training session for staff to have hands-on training with autistic kids. The training is so popular, U-46 plans to extend it to two weeks next summer.
Likewise, District 203 has reorganized staff to provide a regular, in-class immersion for autistic children in the morning. In the afternoon, they go to another building for social skills and language training. The district even created a parent support group because so many parents wanted answers and information about the condition.
Yet despite such advancements, Illinois Autism Project Director Kathy Gould contends that many school systems in the state are still not fully prepared for autistic students.
"I get phone calls every day from parents who say, 'My child is going to school every day, and no one is trained to help him,'" she said. "Teachers and administrators will call and say, 'OK, we've got two kids with autism coming in, and we don't know what to do.' "
Gould's group, based in La Grange, provides intensive training and assistance to schools trying to educate students with autism and other developmental disorders.
To date, only about 11 percent of Illinois districts have received the training, and that puts Illinois behind the curve, Gould said.
Many states have provided autism training for 30 years. Illinois has offered it for only seven because state funding for disabled kids is low and the special education community hasn't created a lobbying effort powerful enough to change that, she said.
In East Maine Elementary District 63 in Des Plaines, there are 24 autistic students - a 50-percent increase in two years. Special Education Director Brad Voehringer said the district is finding the staff and materials to meet the growing need, but money is scarce.
"Special education has never been fully funded," he said. "We have a lot of students with significant needs, and to provide for them we have to have the resources to do that. We're doing it now, but we have to take money out of other programs' pockets to put it into special education."
Beyond that, Gould contends that local universities typically don't offer classes to specifically train future teachers to deal with autistic kids.
"They're just not prepared for the kids," she said. "It's a shame that it's not required training because it's essentially the fastest-growing disability in Illinois."
But the rules of the game are changing. Certification of special education teachers has been revamped since a lawsuit against the Chicago Public Schools over the segregation of disabled students. Before the lawsuit, special ed teachers were certified in a specific area to work with a specific disability. Now, they must have a general certification that enables them to work with all types of disabilities, said Illinois State University Assistant Professor Julia Stoner.
ISU reworked its entire special education curriculum to meet the changes, and the first graduates with the new certification are just now entering the work force. Another 700 current students will follow. Yet, even in the current curriculum, there's no course that focuses purely on autism unless a student goes to graduate school. Mainstream classroom teachers have one special ed introductory course that touches on autism.
But ISU is responding in other ways to reach teachers already out in the field. ISU runs a center that focuses on developing technology to help special education students. It has also opened the Autism Spectrum Institute, which is working with the Illinois Autism Project to provide materials, a reference library and training in autism.
"I don't care what area of teaching you're in, you have to try to keep yourself up-to-date," Stoner said. "We're trying to provide those opportunities because there is definitely a need out there."
The Illinois State Board of Education is tapping into that need with a pilot program it's kicking off this month.
The program, run with the Autism Training Center in West Virginia, places a consultant with a family who has an autistic child and with the child's school. Through training, assessment and consultation, a long-term learning plan is developed for the student.
Fewer than 50 participants - far beneath the demand - will be selected for the pilot program, said state board spokeswoman Becky Watts. When the state board announced the program, "the phones just went crazy," Watts said. "It wasn't just schools, but parents saying, 'I want my child to be part of this pilot project.' It speaks to me of the need that is out there in the state."
The state board is currently setting its funding priorities to present to lawmakers. Watts said the increase in autism will be a consideration.
No easy answer why
Perhaps the only thing harder to find than funding is an explanation for why a child has autism or why the numbers are growing.
"If you read the research, it's all over the place," said District 15's Deb Zech, director of student services. "There's speculation on everything from environmental causes to genetics and just issues with the brain. And, perhaps we're just better at identifying the disorder."
In Jordan Brunett's case, his mother's growing understanding of autism has helped her get over thoughts like, "God, what are you doing to me?" Instead, her concern is, "What can I do for Jordan?"
That attitude has helped him grow into an all-star in Carol Stream's youth baseball program. He's honed his bowling skills enough to earn him a spot on a travel team. And, he has the friends his mother always dreamed he'd have.
"Kids like to be around him," Rhonda Brunett said. "They respect him, but that didn't come easy. That was with perseverance. Everything turned out right for him."
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
Jordan Brunett showed all the qualities of an extraordinary mind at a young age.
At 3, he could name the U.S. presidents in chronological order. He knew all the planets in the solar system. He could count in Spanish.
Yet his mother, Rhonda, sensed there was something not quite right about her son. She had trouble getting his attention. He wouldn't play with other kids. He would sit with a pile of blocks in front of him, swinging each one from ear to ear for hours.
The Carol Stream mom shed many tears of frustration before discovering the cause of her son's behavior. The diagnosis came at a preschool screening just before his third birthday.
Jordan, now 12, is autistic.
After getting over the initial bewilderment, Brunett's next step was figuring out how her son could best be educated.
On a larger level, it's the same struggle schools in Illinois are facing as they see the number of autistic students grow yearly.
According to the state board of education, there are about 7,000 autistic children in Illinois schools, up from 2,305 seven years ago. The same trend can be seen in local school systems.
In Palatine Township Elementary District 15, for instance, the autistic population has doubled in the last five years to about 80 students. Lombard Elementary District 44 has gone from seven to 16 autistic children in a similar time. In Arlington Heights Elementary District 25, growing numbers of autistic children prompted the administration to look at adding a class just for them to augment intensive services already provided.
While experts and lay people alike debate why, educators are working to secure the training and money to meet the demand and the special needs of autistic children.
Jordan Brunett was lucky. His early diagnosis began a process that resulted in an individualized learning plan.
"The school knew what to do," Rhonda Brunett said. "They had that knowledge, but I didn't know anything. So I started to educate myself."
One of the challenges of educating autistic children is that each is different. The syndrome is a lifelong disability that can involve trouble with learning abstract concepts, communication problems, emotional meltdowns when a routine is changed and social isolation.
At Jordan's school, Elsie Johnson in Hanover Park, special education teacher Angelina Summers first came upon autism by chance. While studying to be a mainstream teacher, she had no training in autism until her first student-teaching job.
"I saw a kid who clearly wasn't like the others," she said. "I asked the teacher, and she said, 'Oh, that's autism.' I was like, 'What is that?'"
Now Summers has a class of nine early childhood special-needs students, some of whom are autistic. The current growth of autism has her preparing for up to three more students next year.
Summers' classroom is decorated in brightly colored ABCs and 1-2-3s. Without the students, it's indistinguishable from a "regular" classroom. Yet the class instruction is noticeably different.
Summers doesn't stand in front of the room lecturing to students in desks. Mostly, she sits at a little table with one student at a time while her five aides work with the other kids.
Autistic children can be over-stimulated by large groups and are sometimes uncomfortable sitting near others. For some, a light touch can feel like a slap. A hug can be smothering. A slight flicker of a light can entrance.
In Summers' class, each activity has a picture associated with it to help guide students through the day. Visual aids are nearly a necessity.
"If I were to go a whole day with some kids and not use a single picture, it would be a rough day for some of them," she said.
Meltdown Control
Some people unfamiliar with autism may associate the disorder only with what's known as the meltdown. That might occur when an autistic child is pushed too hard too fast, and the mind becomes jumbled.
"Everyone has warning signs," Summers said. "If you choose to ignore those little sparks, you're going to have a big fire on your hands. If you keep pushing, eventually you'll see the kid with their head on the table not doing anything."
It's not because autistic students are disobedient. Their minds just don't work the same way as other children's.
Despite the challenges, it's not uncommon for autistic children to be placed in regular classes, often with aides.
Others can't function in regular classes. For instance, about 40 percent of children with autism don't speak, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"These are smart kids," Summers said. "I treat them like normal kids because, in my mind, they are. You can't completely define a child by their difficult moments."
Just defining a child as autistic can be a struggle. Meeting the needs of high-functioning autistic children can be particularly tricky because their learning is very similar to "regular" students, but their social behaviors are different.
Teachers often sit on the front line in spotting such disorders, since autism can easily be confused with behavior problems. Teachers who aren't trained to spot the disorder can make the same mistake.
Wendy Williams remembers teachers having little patience when her son started school.
"I actually had a teacher come up to me and say he was annoying, and if I didn't do anything ... he was never going to amount to anything," the Wheaton mother said.
Like Jordan, Williams' son displayed talents early, walking at 9 1/2 months, reading on his own at 3. His thirst for knowledge was such that she had him in four different preschool programs to keep him busy.
"I thought the kid was a genius," Williams said.
But odd behavior was there, too. He was afraid to walk barefoot on grass. Loud noises caused extreme trauma. He wouldn't play with other kids.
At 6, he was misdiagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder and placed on medication, to which he had a severe reaction. Eventually, tests confirmed what Williams' own research led her to believe: Her son, now 9, had Asperger's syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism.
"I always thought something was missing because everything the doctors were doing was not working," she said.
Suburban educators are working to prevent repeats of Williams' story while also cringing about past students written off or misdiagnosed.
Disorder old and new
Autism was first described in the 1940s, according to the Autism Society of America. But many educators are only becoming familiar with it as autistic students come into their schools in larger numbers.
"At least now we're recognizing it as a disability," said Naperville Unit District 203's Kitty Murphy, assistant superintendent for special education. "Hindsight is 20/20, but we try not to look back. We try to look forward."
Looking forward is going to look a lot like the recent past, she said. The district doesn't have a full count, but Murphy said it's had about 40 more autistic kids enroll every year since the 2000-01 school year.
That isn't uncommon.
Elgin Area School District U-46's autism numbers have grown to 140 children, large enough for the district to host a weeklong summer training session for staff to have hands-on training with autistic kids. The training is so popular, U-46 plans to extend it to two weeks next summer.
Likewise, District 203 has reorganized staff to provide a regular, in-class immersion for autistic children in the morning. In the afternoon, they go to another building for social skills and language training. The district even created a parent support group because so many parents wanted answers and information about the condition.
Yet despite such advancements, Illinois Autism Project Director Kathy Gould contends that many school systems in the state are still not fully prepared for autistic students.
"I get phone calls every day from parents who say, 'My child is going to school every day, and no one is trained to help him,'" she said. "Teachers and administrators will call and say, 'OK, we've got two kids with autism coming in, and we don't know what to do.' "
Gould's group, based in La Grange, provides intensive training and assistance to schools trying to educate students with autism and other developmental disorders.
To date, only about 11 percent of Illinois districts have received the training, and that puts Illinois behind the curve, Gould said.
Many states have provided autism training for 30 years. Illinois has offered it for only seven because state funding for disabled kids is low and the special education community hasn't created a lobbying effort powerful enough to change that, she said.
In East Maine Elementary District 63 in Des Plaines, there are 24 autistic students - a 50-percent increase in two years. Special Education Director Brad Voehringer said the district is finding the staff and materials to meet the growing need, but money is scarce.
"Special education has never been fully funded," he said. "We have a lot of students with significant needs, and to provide for them we have to have the resources to do that. We're doing it now, but we have to take money out of other programs' pockets to put it into special education."
Beyond that, Gould contends that local universities typically don't offer classes to specifically train future teachers to deal with autistic kids.
"They're just not prepared for the kids," she said. "It's a shame that it's not required training because it's essentially the fastest-growing disability in Illinois."
But the rules of the game are changing. Certification of special education teachers has been revamped since a lawsuit against the Chicago Public Schools over the segregation of disabled students. Before the lawsuit, special ed teachers were certified in a specific area to work with a specific disability. Now, they must have a general certification that enables them to work with all types of disabilities, said Illinois State University Assistant Professor Julia Stoner.
ISU reworked its entire special education curriculum to meet the changes, and the first graduates with the new certification are just now entering the work force. Another 700 current students will follow. Yet, even in the current curriculum, there's no course that focuses purely on autism unless a student goes to graduate school. Mainstream classroom teachers have one special ed introductory course that touches on autism.
But ISU is responding in other ways to reach teachers already out in the field. ISU runs a center that focuses on developing technology to help special education students. It has also opened the Autism Spectrum Institute, which is working with the Illinois Autism Project to provide materials, a reference library and training in autism.
"I don't care what area of teaching you're in, you have to try to keep yourself up-to-date," Stoner said. "We're trying to provide those opportunities because there is definitely a need out there."
The Illinois State Board of Education is tapping into that need with a pilot program it's kicking off this month.
The program, run with the Autism Training Center in West Virginia, places a consultant with a family who has an autistic child and with the child's school. Through training, assessment and consultation, a long-term learning plan is developed for the student.
Fewer than 50 participants - far beneath the demand - will be selected for the pilot program, said state board spokeswoman Becky Watts. When the state board announced the program, "the phones just went crazy," Watts said. "It wasn't just schools, but parents saying, 'I want my child to be part of this pilot project.' It speaks to me of the need that is out there in the state."
The state board is currently setting its funding priorities to present to lawmakers. Watts said the increase in autism will be a consideration.
No easy answer why
Perhaps the only thing harder to find than funding is an explanation for why a child has autism or why the numbers are growing.
"If you read the research, it's all over the place," said District 15's Deb Zech, director of student services. "There's speculation on everything from environmental causes to genetics and just issues with the brain. And, perhaps we're just better at identifying the disorder."
In Jordan Brunett's case, his mother's growing understanding of autism has helped her get over thoughts like, "God, what are you doing to me?" Instead, her concern is, "What can I do for Jordan?"
That attitude has helped him grow into an all-star in Carol Stream's youth baseball program. He's honed his bowling skills enough to earn him a spot on a travel team. And, he has the friends his mother always dreamed he'd have.
"Kids like to be around him," Rhonda Brunett said. "They respect him, but that didn't come easy. That was with perseverance. Everything turned out right for him."
(Part 4 of 4-part series) 'Engine 55 has a friend for life'
Tuesday September 03 2002
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
On looks alone, Joe Cantafio is an unlikely hero.
No cape trails him as he limps through the streets of New York. With knees that should belong to a retired linebacker instead of a stockbroker, it's Cantafio who is often trailing the pack when the firefighters walk Manhattan.
"Wait, where's Joe?" They quizzically stop and look around.
Cantafio's knees aren't made for walking with guys in such good shape. But when he's in New York, he's on his feet at least seven hours a day.
So his pals only smile and razz him while they wait patiently at the stoplight for him to catch up.
Cantafio, a Barrington resident and Oak Park native, is nearing the end of his yearlong concert tour to raise money for the families of Engine Co. 55's lost men.
The Let Freedom Sing tour is inching up on about 100 performances, many of them a machine-like four hours in length. Some are played with his band Jade; others with just his guitar and an old fire boot for donations.
Through it all he has made Engine 55 the Chicago suburbs' most popular Sept. 11 charity, collecting tens of thousands of dollars here that he gives directly to the firehouse for the families.
* * *
Cantafio spends a lot of time on the road, shuffling his daughters to family members supportive of his cause. He worries about not being there enough for his four girls, but when he plays locally they are his best roadies.
Stocks are now little more than an activity he squeezes in between half-hour naps. He sleeps in 10-minute cab rides. He has no time for it.
"You know what I mean, Joe?" asks John Olivero, wrapping up a thought while driving Cantafio to a nightly show.
Cantafio's closed eyes gaze up at the dome light, arms folded on his chest. A snore is his only reply. Olivero smiles and shuts up. Later, on a ferry ride to the Statue of Liberty, Cantafio dozes off on a bench. The other guys grin and leave him alone.
"I've figured out that I need five hours of sleep to get my voice right for a show," Cantafio says of the catnaps. "It doesn't matter how I get it as long as it's five hours total."
When he isn't singing or sleeping, he's planning, mapping out shows, scheduling venues. He keeps all his contacts in an orange book. It's the closest thing he has to a secretary.
But why all this for people he never met, faces he'd never seen and a city 900 miles away?
It began with fury.
The morning of Sept. 11, Cantafio sat in front of his television and watched the planes hammer the twin towers of the World Trade Center. First one, then the other, and again, and again, and again as the replays looped throughout the day. Cantafio's fists tightened, his teeth clenched. He was transfixed, horrified and, in the end, changed.
During Desert Storm, he was a big talker, watching the war from his couch and bad mouthing the Iraqis.
"I'd come home from work and tell the kids, 'Let's watch the war,' " Cantafio recalls.
Not this time. This time the war hit too close to home. His firm did business with Cantor Fitzgerald, whose offices and work staff were all but eliminated in the holocaust. He had acquaintances at Mainstay Funds. He was working on a deal with a Korean bank and a German bank, both in the World Trade Center. All pulverized and gone.
Firefighters buzzed around the scene, directing people out of the towers in waves, ascending to the hell fires of the upper floors even as the steel continued to weaken. Screaming people ran out. Firemen raced to get in. It was inspirational.
Cantafio has firefighters in his family - cousins, his brother-in-law, a nephew. They weren't in New York, but he was never prouder to have them in his bloodline.
Those competing emotions battled for release, and in a catharsis Cantafio turned to the medium he knew best - music. Cantafio has played the guitar ever since he learned the six strings from Sister Mary Rose at St. Catherine of Siena School in Oak Park.
In 1973 at Oak Park River Forest High School, Cantafio put together his first band. They scored a gig playing '50s tunes for a "flashback day." Soon other schools had the band performing throwback sock-hops. The Jade 50s were born.
The band went on tour nationally with "Dick Clark's Good Ol' Rock and Roll Show" and "Wolfman Jack's Rockin' Oldies Show" for the bulk of Cantafio's 20s. Those were the good old days.
Fast forward to 2001. Cantafio gave up the road years ago and built a decent career in finance, rising to be vice president at Chicago's One Financial Center. He has custody of his four daughters and a nice house in Barrington.
Following Sept. 11, he went a little nuts. First, he tried to join the Army. At 47, that was no go.
So, searching for good feelings again, his guitar was a natural crutch. Only this time, he played songs like "Dust in the Wind" and "In My Life" instead of '50s tunes.
His shoulders relaxed. His red face returned to a natural tone. The tears dried up and his mind started working.
The first tentative shows brought in $10 a pop and were played to as few as seven people.
"Is this an audience or an oil painting?" he dead-panned to his smaller, quieter crowds.
But a show here, a show there, and a tour was started.
It needed direction. Cantafio called the New York Fire Department where he was directed to www.fdny.org and a list of 343 dead firefighters and their pictures. He printed them all out, tears tumbling down his cheeks as he looked into their faces.
The names went into a hat. He picked one: Chris Mozzillo, Engine Co. 55. The men of Engine 55 would get the money he raised.
He wrote letters to Engine 55, explaining his plan. For a while there was no response. Then, finally, an e-mail came from Olivero.
"We all are very excited and impressed with what you are doing for the families of our fallen brothers," Olivero wrote.
It was the beginning of a bond that would carry Cantafio through his mission. But no e-mail or phone call could hammer home the deep emotion behind Cantafio's efforts. He had to go to New York. The firefighters needed help. They had been duped by various charity efforts and only prayed Cantafio was real.
To seal the deal, Cantafio brought the firefighters to Chicago so they could see his shows firsthand. By then, he was organized. His shows were packed. In March, he even had Engine 55 men marching with President Bush in Chicago's St. Patrick's Day parade. Thrilled, afterward Cantafio called his mom.
"Did you see me shake hands with the president?" he demanded.
During Fourth of July celebrations from Bartlett to Barrington to Naperville, Engine 55 men were the guests of honor. There was no doubt that Chicago loved and admired the courage of New York's bravest. It was time to take the show to New York.
At Cantafio's shows at neighborhood pubs in New York, the firefighters are at ease. He doesn't raise much money, but in New York, it's not entirely about raising money.
The firefighters hit the stage and sing along on "American Pie," the nightly show stopper. They huddle around, arms on each other's shoulders, and scream into the microphone.
Cantafio makes a nightly lyric substitute at the end:
"And the three men I admire most - Charlie Ferris, Olivero and Bobby Yost - they took the last train headed for the coast. The day the music died."
The names are those of three living Engine 55 firefighters. He rotates the lyrics among the men, but his admiration is genuine. They are his heroes.
The guys do Elvis and Mick Jagger impersonations while Joe sings. Hips gyrating, peacock struts. At one show a visiting fireman from Pennsylvania surfs the table during a Beach Boys tune. They toss back beers and dance. They are at ease.
So is Cantafio. The sweat beads on his forehead. He plays from a back corner of the bar, dimly lit and partially obscured by tables and poles.
He doesn't drink alcohol. Water quenches his thirst but his gulps are always followed with an "Ahhhhh ... Budweiser," or whatever beer is on tap to help sales.
Behind the music, Cantafio is a counselor. During a ride to another show, Paul Quinn, the only surviving member of the engine's original response team to the World Trade Center, confides in him. Quinn is alive because one man always has to stay with the truck. On Sept. 11, that was him.
He dove under the rig when the South Tower came down. Rescue workers later found him wandering and covered in dust, unable to remember how he got there. Dazed but alive. When the North Tower came down 29 minutes later it buried the rig 40 feet underground.
Quinn has spent months dealing with the confusion and guilt and grief.
"Do you think I'm crazy?" he asks Cantafio. His friend shakes is head.
"No. Whatever's going on in your head, God bless you," Cantafio responds.
That night, Quinn sits front row and smiles. By the end of the night, he's calling out requests and singing solos. Crazy doesn't look like this.
Cantafio is an angry man. His cries for revenge are frequently sprinkled into monologues with his audiences.
Tuning his guitar for the next song, he launches another volley.
"You know, I think we should nuke the whole country over into glass," he says of the war in Afghanistan. "Then we can put all the survivors and war prisoners to work grinding it up into sand again."
When he visits ground zero, the veins in his neck and forehead become visible. He grips the fence tighter and shakes his curly head.
He hugs a complete stranger, Mary Ann Carne, who lost dozens of friends at WTC and now comes to the site once a month to grieve. She lets it all out in deep sobs and trembling tears.
There is another woman, nearly frantic, who scrunches her face and cries. She is from Boston and is guilt-ridden because some of the jets used by the terrorists took off from her city. Her arms wave as if blindly searching for something to embrace. Cantafio reaches out.
* * *
Come fall, the tour will be officially over. It must be, from exhaustion if nothing else. Cantafio's four daughters, Kim, Laura, Jennifer and Danielle, need his good Samaritan example, but they also need him at home.
If terror strikes again, Joe will play again. If any of the grieving families of Chris Mozzillo, Bobby Lane, Lt. Peter Freund, Stephen Russell and Faustino Apostal need someone to talk to, his number is on speed dial. And, if the firefighters of New York ever need a hand, they have a new brother.
"I think I have a friend for life," said John Olivero. "Engine 55 has a friend for life. So does New York."
-30-
View the accompanying Web journal and photo gallery that ran with this series here: http://www.dailyherald.com/special/91102/journal.asp
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
On looks alone, Joe Cantafio is an unlikely hero.
No cape trails him as he limps through the streets of New York. With knees that should belong to a retired linebacker instead of a stockbroker, it's Cantafio who is often trailing the pack when the firefighters walk Manhattan.
"Wait, where's Joe?" They quizzically stop and look around.
Cantafio's knees aren't made for walking with guys in such good shape. But when he's in New York, he's on his feet at least seven hours a day.
So his pals only smile and razz him while they wait patiently at the stoplight for him to catch up.
Cantafio, a Barrington resident and Oak Park native, is nearing the end of his yearlong concert tour to raise money for the families of Engine Co. 55's lost men.
The Let Freedom Sing tour is inching up on about 100 performances, many of them a machine-like four hours in length. Some are played with his band Jade; others with just his guitar and an old fire boot for donations.
Through it all he has made Engine 55 the Chicago suburbs' most popular Sept. 11 charity, collecting tens of thousands of dollars here that he gives directly to the firehouse for the families.
* * *
Cantafio spends a lot of time on the road, shuffling his daughters to family members supportive of his cause. He worries about not being there enough for his four girls, but when he plays locally they are his best roadies.
Stocks are now little more than an activity he squeezes in between half-hour naps. He sleeps in 10-minute cab rides. He has no time for it.
"You know what I mean, Joe?" asks John Olivero, wrapping up a thought while driving Cantafio to a nightly show.
Cantafio's closed eyes gaze up at the dome light, arms folded on his chest. A snore is his only reply. Olivero smiles and shuts up. Later, on a ferry ride to the Statue of Liberty, Cantafio dozes off on a bench. The other guys grin and leave him alone.
"I've figured out that I need five hours of sleep to get my voice right for a show," Cantafio says of the catnaps. "It doesn't matter how I get it as long as it's five hours total."
When he isn't singing or sleeping, he's planning, mapping out shows, scheduling venues. He keeps all his contacts in an orange book. It's the closest thing he has to a secretary.
But why all this for people he never met, faces he'd never seen and a city 900 miles away?
It began with fury.
The morning of Sept. 11, Cantafio sat in front of his television and watched the planes hammer the twin towers of the World Trade Center. First one, then the other, and again, and again, and again as the replays looped throughout the day. Cantafio's fists tightened, his teeth clenched. He was transfixed, horrified and, in the end, changed.
During Desert Storm, he was a big talker, watching the war from his couch and bad mouthing the Iraqis.
"I'd come home from work and tell the kids, 'Let's watch the war,' " Cantafio recalls.
Not this time. This time the war hit too close to home. His firm did business with Cantor Fitzgerald, whose offices and work staff were all but eliminated in the holocaust. He had acquaintances at Mainstay Funds. He was working on a deal with a Korean bank and a German bank, both in the World Trade Center. All pulverized and gone.
Firefighters buzzed around the scene, directing people out of the towers in waves, ascending to the hell fires of the upper floors even as the steel continued to weaken. Screaming people ran out. Firemen raced to get in. It was inspirational.
Cantafio has firefighters in his family - cousins, his brother-in-law, a nephew. They weren't in New York, but he was never prouder to have them in his bloodline.
Those competing emotions battled for release, and in a catharsis Cantafio turned to the medium he knew best - music. Cantafio has played the guitar ever since he learned the six strings from Sister Mary Rose at St. Catherine of Siena School in Oak Park.
In 1973 at Oak Park River Forest High School, Cantafio put together his first band. They scored a gig playing '50s tunes for a "flashback day." Soon other schools had the band performing throwback sock-hops. The Jade 50s were born.
The band went on tour nationally with "Dick Clark's Good Ol' Rock and Roll Show" and "Wolfman Jack's Rockin' Oldies Show" for the bulk of Cantafio's 20s. Those were the good old days.
Fast forward to 2001. Cantafio gave up the road years ago and built a decent career in finance, rising to be vice president at Chicago's One Financial Center. He has custody of his four daughters and a nice house in Barrington.
Following Sept. 11, he went a little nuts. First, he tried to join the Army. At 47, that was no go.
So, searching for good feelings again, his guitar was a natural crutch. Only this time, he played songs like "Dust in the Wind" and "In My Life" instead of '50s tunes.
His shoulders relaxed. His red face returned to a natural tone. The tears dried up and his mind started working.
The first tentative shows brought in $10 a pop and were played to as few as seven people.
"Is this an audience or an oil painting?" he dead-panned to his smaller, quieter crowds.
But a show here, a show there, and a tour was started.
It needed direction. Cantafio called the New York Fire Department where he was directed to www.fdny.org and a list of 343 dead firefighters and their pictures. He printed them all out, tears tumbling down his cheeks as he looked into their faces.
The names went into a hat. He picked one: Chris Mozzillo, Engine Co. 55. The men of Engine 55 would get the money he raised.
He wrote letters to Engine 55, explaining his plan. For a while there was no response. Then, finally, an e-mail came from Olivero.
"We all are very excited and impressed with what you are doing for the families of our fallen brothers," Olivero wrote.
It was the beginning of a bond that would carry Cantafio through his mission. But no e-mail or phone call could hammer home the deep emotion behind Cantafio's efforts. He had to go to New York. The firefighters needed help. They had been duped by various charity efforts and only prayed Cantafio was real.
To seal the deal, Cantafio brought the firefighters to Chicago so they could see his shows firsthand. By then, he was organized. His shows were packed. In March, he even had Engine 55 men marching with President Bush in Chicago's St. Patrick's Day parade. Thrilled, afterward Cantafio called his mom.
"Did you see me shake hands with the president?" he demanded.
During Fourth of July celebrations from Bartlett to Barrington to Naperville, Engine 55 men were the guests of honor. There was no doubt that Chicago loved and admired the courage of New York's bravest. It was time to take the show to New York.
At Cantafio's shows at neighborhood pubs in New York, the firefighters are at ease. He doesn't raise much money, but in New York, it's not entirely about raising money.
The firefighters hit the stage and sing along on "American Pie," the nightly show stopper. They huddle around, arms on each other's shoulders, and scream into the microphone.
Cantafio makes a nightly lyric substitute at the end:
"And the three men I admire most - Charlie Ferris, Olivero and Bobby Yost - they took the last train headed for the coast. The day the music died."
The names are those of three living Engine 55 firefighters. He rotates the lyrics among the men, but his admiration is genuine. They are his heroes.
The guys do Elvis and Mick Jagger impersonations while Joe sings. Hips gyrating, peacock struts. At one show a visiting fireman from Pennsylvania surfs the table during a Beach Boys tune. They toss back beers and dance. They are at ease.
So is Cantafio. The sweat beads on his forehead. He plays from a back corner of the bar, dimly lit and partially obscured by tables and poles.
He doesn't drink alcohol. Water quenches his thirst but his gulps are always followed with an "Ahhhhh ... Budweiser," or whatever beer is on tap to help sales.
Behind the music, Cantafio is a counselor. During a ride to another show, Paul Quinn, the only surviving member of the engine's original response team to the World Trade Center, confides in him. Quinn is alive because one man always has to stay with the truck. On Sept. 11, that was him.
He dove under the rig when the South Tower came down. Rescue workers later found him wandering and covered in dust, unable to remember how he got there. Dazed but alive. When the North Tower came down 29 minutes later it buried the rig 40 feet underground.
Quinn has spent months dealing with the confusion and guilt and grief.
"Do you think I'm crazy?" he asks Cantafio. His friend shakes is head.
"No. Whatever's going on in your head, God bless you," Cantafio responds.
That night, Quinn sits front row and smiles. By the end of the night, he's calling out requests and singing solos. Crazy doesn't look like this.
Cantafio is an angry man. His cries for revenge are frequently sprinkled into monologues with his audiences.
Tuning his guitar for the next song, he launches another volley.
"You know, I think we should nuke the whole country over into glass," he says of the war in Afghanistan. "Then we can put all the survivors and war prisoners to work grinding it up into sand again."
When he visits ground zero, the veins in his neck and forehead become visible. He grips the fence tighter and shakes his curly head.
He hugs a complete stranger, Mary Ann Carne, who lost dozens of friends at WTC and now comes to the site once a month to grieve. She lets it all out in deep sobs and trembling tears.
There is another woman, nearly frantic, who scrunches her face and cries. She is from Boston and is guilt-ridden because some of the jets used by the terrorists took off from her city. Her arms wave as if blindly searching for something to embrace. Cantafio reaches out.
* * *
Come fall, the tour will be officially over. It must be, from exhaustion if nothing else. Cantafio's four daughters, Kim, Laura, Jennifer and Danielle, need his good Samaritan example, but they also need him at home.
If terror strikes again, Joe will play again. If any of the grieving families of Chris Mozzillo, Bobby Lane, Lt. Peter Freund, Stephen Russell and Faustino Apostal need someone to talk to, his number is on speed dial. And, if the firefighters of New York ever need a hand, they have a new brother.
"I think I have a friend for life," said John Olivero. "Engine 55 has a friend for life. So does New York."
-30-
View the accompanying Web journal and photo gallery that ran with this series here: http://www.dailyherald.com/special/91102/journal.asp
(Part 3 of 4-part series) Suburbs helping heal New York firehouse
Sunday September 01 2002
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
On Sept. 11, New York lost 343 firefighters and gained a city.
The connection that grew between New York and Chicago in the days and weeks following 9/11 is a rope made of many individual threads.
Chicago area police officers sped to the Big Apple to join the rescue and recovery effort, direct traffic or do whatever was needed to keep New York operating.
Firefighters from Chicago and the suburbs grabbed their helmets and gear and headed east. Some, like Schaumburg's Lt. Rick Kolomay, dug into the pile of rubble alongside the New Yorkers. Others, like nine from Bartlett, Hanover Park and Streamwood, packed their Class A uniforms and went to as many funerals and memorial services as they could fit into a week of vacation.
Throughout the fall, our citizens collected money, by the penny and by the pound. We gathered emergency supplies and personally drove them out East. We held blood drives, organized memorial services, made Christmas ornaments for children's trees.
And Joe Cantafio picked up his guitar again.
* * *
Cantafio, a Barrington area stock trader, was torn up at the devastation and the loss of life on Sept. 11, chiefly the sacrifice of the 353 firefighters who ran up the World Trade Center stairs instead of fleeing.
He neither wanted nor needed to deal with the financial issues the large charities were having. Instead of throwing money into a boot, this brother-in-law of a firefighter would donate a year of his life and bring the Chicago suburbs along for the ride.
He put the names of all the lost firefighters into a bowl and picked one at random. Chris Mozzillo, one of five from Engine Company 55 who died, came out. Engine 55 would benefit from Cantafio's efforts.
For nearly a year, that mission has included concerts, singing at festivals and clubs, urging people to give whatever they could to benefit the families of the five Engine 55 men killed at the World Trade Center.
Mixing with local firefighters, suburban community groups and Chicago-area musicians, Cantafio has been on a Forrest Gump-like tour of good faith and helping hands.
"'Let Freedom Sing' has been driven by patriotism, kept together through faith and spawned from pure fate," says Cantafio of his mission.
In the process he's met President Bush, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, Chicago Fire Chief and "Backdraft" movie inspiration Robert Hoff and shook the hand of Cardinal Francis George.
Local talents Ronnie Rice of New Colony Six fame; Jon Brandt, formerly of Cheap Trick; Jay Geppner of the Beatle Brothers and Dick Biondi of Magic 104.3-FM have all stepped to the microphone to inspire donations at various concerts.
But beyond the political bigwigs and rock stars is the infusion of the cause into local homes, garages and firehouses. It's the contribution of the local man, woman and child that has completed the melding of the Hudson Bay with the Des Plaines River.
April 19, 2002, was officially FDNY Engine 55 Day in Chicago. Engine 55 firefighters were grand marshals at Chicago's St. Patrick's Day parade, as well as July 4th parades in Bartlett, Barrington, Palatine, Morton Grove, Naperville and Skokie. New York firefighters clamber onto the stage when Cantafio sings at suburban events, joining in loudly and sometimes badly off-key.
The Engine 55 men carry stories back to New York of Schaumburg kids collecting $44 in change in a big athletic sock and how tears still flood the faces of Midwesterners at Cantafio's shows.
Initially, the New Yorkers couldn't understand that outpouring of emotion so many miles away from ground zero.
But after thousands of hand shakes and hugs, the message from Chicago and its suburbs is clear. New York and Washington, D.C., alone were not attacked on Sept. 11 - America was, and that's a bond that bridges any distance.
"I used to hate Chicago," said Manny Gonzalez, a New York medical technician who does health checks on the firefighters. "But not after this. You guys changed my heart."
Now, whenever Engine 55 firefighters need to fly to Chicago for a benefit concert, American Airlines' Caroline Formoso and United Airlines' Susie Gindo find the seats.
Whenever they need a bed to sleep on, Joe Pinto at Itasca's Wyndham Hotel makes sure there are rooms, no questions asked.
At all of Cantafio's performances, The Berghoff's Joe Gleddus supplies beer to the venue and donates all the money from the bottles sold to the cause.
"Much like everyone else, we were just sitting around stunned, wondering what we could do to help," Gleddus said. "Then I got a call from a business partner about his friend organizing a fund-raising event. It's a good cause, and we do what we can in whatever small way we can help."
Cubs tickets? No problem. An Engine 55 firefighter wants to throw out the first pitch when the White Sox play the Yankees? Done. Dinner for 30? Have a seat.
Wherever Cantafio plays, there are local people who design, print and sell T-shirts to raise money for the widowed families. Others print and pass out flyers.
Cantafio said the night when Engine 55's Paul Acciarito tossed the first pitch at the White Sox game represented a culmination of all his efforts.
"The crowd erupted when the 'FDNY Engine Company 55' logo went up on the screen in center field," Cantafio recalls. "There were 30,000 fans at that game, and it gave me chills to see Pauly whiz a strike over the plate.
"The Engine Company 55 T-shirts that my friends Roy and Lynda Hervas printed up for us were scattered on the backs of patrons all over the park."
If Cantafio has a show in New York, Barrington firefighter Ron DeAville packs the guitar and stage equipment in the back of his pick-up truck, drives the nearly 900 miles to New York and sets it up for him at every venue. Northbrook firefighter Tim Olk is right by his side.
Why?
"I just wanted to help, no questions asked," Olk said.
Part of the bond stems from the firefighter culture. Dedication, tradition, loyalty. Those are the facets of the firefighter creed. It's that same bond that's helped them heal.
"Those with losses need to talk about it, get it out in the open to heal," Cantafio said. "When the firemen come here, we all need healing too, so it's a perfect marriage.
"Someone will politely ask firefighter John Olivero if they can ask him about Sept. 11th. John always says, 'You can ask me anything you'd like.' I can remember a time in March when that wasn't the case for some of the guys at E-55, but they all have seemed to follow John's lead."
Chicago-area firefighters who volunteered in New York said the love affair is mutual. Lines of people would vanish whenever they needed a bar stool or a booth at a restaurant. New Yorkers spontaneously cheered them just walking by.
As the anniversary approaches, Cantafio's tour will wind to a close and the strains of "American Pie," his theme song, will fade away.
Still, every year for the rest of his life, Cantafio will have at least one meal with the men of Engine 55 and those who helped the cause.
Maybe he'll even strum up the song he plays every concert as the New York firemen join him on stage: Bye-bye, Miss American Pie. Hello, brotherhood.
"(Firefighter) Tommy Hogan summed it up every night he was on tour with us," Cantafio said. "He always told the crowds the real twin cities aren't in Minnesota, they are New York and Chicago!'"
-30-
View the accompanying Web journal and photo gallery that ran with this series here: http://www.dailyherald.com/special/91102/journal.asp
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
On Sept. 11, New York lost 343 firefighters and gained a city.
The connection that grew between New York and Chicago in the days and weeks following 9/11 is a rope made of many individual threads.
Chicago area police officers sped to the Big Apple to join the rescue and recovery effort, direct traffic or do whatever was needed to keep New York operating.
Firefighters from Chicago and the suburbs grabbed their helmets and gear and headed east. Some, like Schaumburg's Lt. Rick Kolomay, dug into the pile of rubble alongside the New Yorkers. Others, like nine from Bartlett, Hanover Park and Streamwood, packed their Class A uniforms and went to as many funerals and memorial services as they could fit into a week of vacation.
Throughout the fall, our citizens collected money, by the penny and by the pound. We gathered emergency supplies and personally drove them out East. We held blood drives, organized memorial services, made Christmas ornaments for children's trees.
And Joe Cantafio picked up his guitar again.
* * *
Cantafio, a Barrington area stock trader, was torn up at the devastation and the loss of life on Sept. 11, chiefly the sacrifice of the 353 firefighters who ran up the World Trade Center stairs instead of fleeing.
He neither wanted nor needed to deal with the financial issues the large charities were having. Instead of throwing money into a boot, this brother-in-law of a firefighter would donate a year of his life and bring the Chicago suburbs along for the ride.
He put the names of all the lost firefighters into a bowl and picked one at random. Chris Mozzillo, one of five from Engine Company 55 who died, came out. Engine 55 would benefit from Cantafio's efforts.
For nearly a year, that mission has included concerts, singing at festivals and clubs, urging people to give whatever they could to benefit the families of the five Engine 55 men killed at the World Trade Center.
Mixing with local firefighters, suburban community groups and Chicago-area musicians, Cantafio has been on a Forrest Gump-like tour of good faith and helping hands.
"'Let Freedom Sing' has been driven by patriotism, kept together through faith and spawned from pure fate," says Cantafio of his mission.
In the process he's met President Bush, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, Chicago Fire Chief and "Backdraft" movie inspiration Robert Hoff and shook the hand of Cardinal Francis George.
Local talents Ronnie Rice of New Colony Six fame; Jon Brandt, formerly of Cheap Trick; Jay Geppner of the Beatle Brothers and Dick Biondi of Magic 104.3-FM have all stepped to the microphone to inspire donations at various concerts.
But beyond the political bigwigs and rock stars is the infusion of the cause into local homes, garages and firehouses. It's the contribution of the local man, woman and child that has completed the melding of the Hudson Bay with the Des Plaines River.
April 19, 2002, was officially FDNY Engine 55 Day in Chicago. Engine 55 firefighters were grand marshals at Chicago's St. Patrick's Day parade, as well as July 4th parades in Bartlett, Barrington, Palatine, Morton Grove, Naperville and Skokie. New York firefighters clamber onto the stage when Cantafio sings at suburban events, joining in loudly and sometimes badly off-key.
The Engine 55 men carry stories back to New York of Schaumburg kids collecting $44 in change in a big athletic sock and how tears still flood the faces of Midwesterners at Cantafio's shows.
Initially, the New Yorkers couldn't understand that outpouring of emotion so many miles away from ground zero.
But after thousands of hand shakes and hugs, the message from Chicago and its suburbs is clear. New York and Washington, D.C., alone were not attacked on Sept. 11 - America was, and that's a bond that bridges any distance.
"I used to hate Chicago," said Manny Gonzalez, a New York medical technician who does health checks on the firefighters. "But not after this. You guys changed my heart."
Now, whenever Engine 55 firefighters need to fly to Chicago for a benefit concert, American Airlines' Caroline Formoso and United Airlines' Susie Gindo find the seats.
Whenever they need a bed to sleep on, Joe Pinto at Itasca's Wyndham Hotel makes sure there are rooms, no questions asked.
At all of Cantafio's performances, The Berghoff's Joe Gleddus supplies beer to the venue and donates all the money from the bottles sold to the cause.
"Much like everyone else, we were just sitting around stunned, wondering what we could do to help," Gleddus said. "Then I got a call from a business partner about his friend organizing a fund-raising event. It's a good cause, and we do what we can in whatever small way we can help."
Cubs tickets? No problem. An Engine 55 firefighter wants to throw out the first pitch when the White Sox play the Yankees? Done. Dinner for 30? Have a seat.
Wherever Cantafio plays, there are local people who design, print and sell T-shirts to raise money for the widowed families. Others print and pass out flyers.
Cantafio said the night when Engine 55's Paul Acciarito tossed the first pitch at the White Sox game represented a culmination of all his efforts.
"The crowd erupted when the 'FDNY Engine Company 55' logo went up on the screen in center field," Cantafio recalls. "There were 30,000 fans at that game, and it gave me chills to see Pauly whiz a strike over the plate.
"The Engine Company 55 T-shirts that my friends Roy and Lynda Hervas printed up for us were scattered on the backs of patrons all over the park."
If Cantafio has a show in New York, Barrington firefighter Ron DeAville packs the guitar and stage equipment in the back of his pick-up truck, drives the nearly 900 miles to New York and sets it up for him at every venue. Northbrook firefighter Tim Olk is right by his side.
Why?
"I just wanted to help, no questions asked," Olk said.
Part of the bond stems from the firefighter culture. Dedication, tradition, loyalty. Those are the facets of the firefighter creed. It's that same bond that's helped them heal.
"Those with losses need to talk about it, get it out in the open to heal," Cantafio said. "When the firemen come here, we all need healing too, so it's a perfect marriage.
"Someone will politely ask firefighter John Olivero if they can ask him about Sept. 11th. John always says, 'You can ask me anything you'd like.' I can remember a time in March when that wasn't the case for some of the guys at E-55, but they all have seemed to follow John's lead."
Chicago-area firefighters who volunteered in New York said the love affair is mutual. Lines of people would vanish whenever they needed a bar stool or a booth at a restaurant. New Yorkers spontaneously cheered them just walking by.
As the anniversary approaches, Cantafio's tour will wind to a close and the strains of "American Pie," his theme song, will fade away.
Still, every year for the rest of his life, Cantafio will have at least one meal with the men of Engine 55 and those who helped the cause.
Maybe he'll even strum up the song he plays every concert as the New York firemen join him on stage: Bye-bye, Miss American Pie. Hello, brotherhood.
"(Firefighter) Tommy Hogan summed it up every night he was on tour with us," Cantafio said. "He always told the crowds the real twin cities aren't in Minnesota, they are New York and Chicago!'"
-30-
View the accompanying Web journal and photo gallery that ran with this series here: http://www.dailyherald.com/special/91102/journal.asp
(Part 2 of 4-part series) 'The money becomes the person' For families, donations keep memory of 5 firefighters alive
Monday September 02 2002
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
Cliff Russell knew he could not find peace until he found his little brother.
It was Sept. 11. Engine Company 55 was responding to a gas leak just a few blocks from the World Trade Center when the first jet smashed the North Tower.
They were among the first rescue teams to arrive and four of the men ran into the tower. One stayed outside with the truck, as was procedure.
By the time the day was over, 353 firefighters died, but helped save 25,000.
The dead included five from Engine 55, including 40-year-old Stephen Russell. His body was buried with the rest of his fire fighting corps in that apocalyptic pile of concrete, twisted metal and human flesh.
Cliff Russell, an operations engineer and Stephen's older brother, lacked the training to work on "The Pile," where rescue teams already gingerly picked their way around the shifting rubble. But he knew where to get it. To find his little brother, he must become his little brother.
Russell never spent much time at Engine 55, but he knew where it was. Knocking on the door, he introduced himself and was taken to the captain. Capt. Tom Toomey stared at the hard-eyed visitor. Toomey, a gritty man with a take-charge attitude had already bucked protocol that morning, tired of waiting for orders that were slow in coming. With the firehouse only eight Chicago-blocks from Ground Zero, he sent his men back to the site to begin rescue and recovery.
"You want to look for your brother?" he said finally. "OK."
Cliff Russell took Stephen's boots, pants, coat and helmet from his brother's locker and put them on. He was in the same 6-foot range as Stephen. His gut protruded a bit farther over the belt, but the gear was nevertheless a good fit.
Toomey and the available firemen put Cliff through a crash course. He wouldn't have to become a firefighter overnight, just pass as one. When they finished, his newly acquired lingo and manners paired well enough with his brother's gear to get him past the police guards and onto the site. For a month and a half, Cliff Russell dug alongside the crew from Engine 55, wondering from moment to moment if the next severed hand, battered leg or crushed head he uncovered would belong to his little brother.
* * *
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Those words never painted a more accurate picture than they did on Sept. 11. In the weeks and months afterward, people rushed to donate money. Meanwhile, the recipients learned money never meant so much and so little at the same time.
In the year since Sept. 11, the Chicago area has raised tens of thousands of dollars for the families of the five fallen Engine 55 firefighters.
Residents here have supported the efforts of Barrington singer and stockbroker Joe Cantafio, who embarked on a year-long concert tour to raise money directly for the families of Engine 55 instead of routing it through established charities.
One of the men had a wife and young children. Another was already a grandfather. The others had parents, sisters, nieces and nephews. And all of them left behind their brothers at Engine 55.
Chris Mozzillo was the youngest member of the firehouse to die. He never reached his 28th birthday.
His lineage mapped out both his future and love of adventure. His father, Mike, now retired, was a New York firefighter. Chris's toys were die-cast fire trucks and little fire helmets. His idea of a good time included feeding sharks while swimming with them or pounding anyone who gave his sister, Pam, a tough time.
He could get up a staircase in full gear in seemingly a single bound. The men of Engine 55 believe Mozzillo climbed higher up into the towers than the rest of their crew.
That may be the reason his body is still missing, the only Engine 55 man not recovered.
Bobby Lane, 28, was always in motion. In addition to being a fireman, he was a Special Olympics volunteer, a member of the department's hockey and softball teams and a former college football player. When he wasn't doing all that, he loved to cook.
He hammed it up in firehouse photos, in one donning little, pink-rimmed sunglasses for the sake of a laugh.
The families of Mozzillo and Lane will use the money they receive to establish scholarships in their sons' names.
Faustino Apostal was the senior member of those lost. He rode in Engine 55 for more than two decades but was recently transferred out. On Sept. 11, he arrived at the scene, saw his old rig, grabbed a 55 helmet and raced into the burning towers behind the three who were already inside. He never came out.
He was a family man who married his high school sweetheart. A grandfather at 55, he would baby sit and mow the lawn. He couldn't bring himself to hang up his gear even as his colleagues retired. Firefighting was just too much fun. His family will likely use the money they get to establish a college fund for his grandchildren.
Lt. Peter Freund was also a family man. In his younger days, he was a hippie and never lost his kind, gentle ways. On the day he died, at age 45, he was known mainly as Daddy by his three young children.
In the confusion that marked the days after Sept. 11, Freund's colleagues were tormented by several reports that he was sighted working in the wreckage.
All proved bogus when his body was later discovered.
His wife, Robin, is thinking about using the money she gets to buy an athletic field and name it after Peter. A touching gift, but some of the firefighters worry what she'll do when the money is gone.
Lastly, there is the man they called MacGyver for his ingenuity around the firehouse. As the towers burned Sept. 11, Marie Russell stepped out onto the dock behind her house in the Rockaways section of Queens. Stretching out into Jamaica Bay, it provided a clear view of the fiery twin towers.
Peering through the viewfinder of her hand-held video camera, the white-haired, spectacled woman knew her son would be there, saving lives. She would make a video scrapbook of his bravery during a historic moment.
Then, one by one, the towers fell.
Marie went inside and closed the curtains. The windows remained shrouded for weeks. Her baby was gone.
* * *
For seemingly endless days, Cliff Russell chased ghosts. Somewhere in this unnatural graveyard was his brother.
The area to search was extensive and treacherous. Metal and concrete were not meant to lie this way. In some areas it rose as high as 50 feet above the street. Debris created chasms and mountains so steep that rescue workers had to sit and slide to get anywhere. Some pockets still blazed with fire, others radiated intense heat coming from no visible source.
But Cliff Russell avoided the most dangerous tasks. All he wanted was a shovel. If Steve was mixed in with the steel and blood, he would find him or go crazy trying.
For a week after Sept. 11, Cliff Russell worked every day. After that he came back several times a week, whenever he could, digging and bagging body parts.
In the early morning hours of Oct. 22, the call came.
"Engine 55, get up here!"
Steve was found. He was dead, but Cliff could finally begin to live again.
Cliff Russell's basement is filled with mementos. In one corner is a large, homemade poster. On the right side is a photo of Stephen Russell in his fire gear, smile on his face. On the left side, a photo of Cliff Russell wearing that same gear, fatigue on his face.
The relics he collected from the site are priceless in memoriam. A chunk of glass from a World Trade Center window sits near a small, round, polished box with Steve's name on it. It contains dirt from ground zero, and there are only about 3,000 like it in the world, each with a different name.
"It's what you have and if you were never recovered, it's still all you have," Russell says of the box.
Then comes another box.
Out of a small plastic container, Russell pulls out a hand-sized, Africa-shaped chunk of cement. It's part of an area known as stairwell 6b. It feels chalky. Visitors sniff the rock gingerly, like checking something in the refrigerator. A bitter taste shoots up the back of the tongue and remains for several seconds, like sucking on a hot penny. The smell is comparable to lighting a thousand sparklers and letting them burn all the way down at once while holding them.
It is the odor of 3,000 dead people mixed with molten metal and pulverized concrete.
To complete the journey, Russell displays an album of photos he took with disposable cameras. Everything in the pictures has an inch of powder on it, an unseasonable snow. There is a fire truck sitting in the middle of West Street with no tires on the rims. Melted.
Russell found bodies in various conditions depending on their location.
"Just like sleeping men," Russell said of one group of dead firemen.
Of another set of photos, he says, "On this day it was really bad because that's when we found legs, arms, torsos, and nobody ever had a head. Nobody in the street ever had a head."
"There's a lot of things that were answered," he added about the day they found Stephen. "He's not wandering around. He's not in the hospital and doesn't know who he is. I know where he is and we got him back and I can put him to rest. I made my peace. I don't have to talk to the ghosts that I used to talk to every morning."
As he flips through the album, music plays in the background. It's "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd. Cliff Russell looks sleepy, yet he bounces around with great energy. His heart is numb, but the mind still remembers. There is no full recovery, just acceptance.
It seems to be more than his parents have.
"People who lost somebody are not going to want to ask for money," Russell said of the charity efforts, Cantafio's included. "My mother gets a check, she gets upset. If the money that was in the check ever gets spent in its total, she's going to be very upset.
"There's a connection. Now the money becomes Steve. Everything becomes the person. It's whacked."
Steve had a bungalow apartment connected to his parents house. Now, Cliff Sr. and Marie tend to it, watering the plants he left behind but touching nothing else. Except for the contents of the refrigerator, the interior is frozen in time. The calendar in the makeshift office still reads September. Steve was scheduled to go skydiving the week of the 17th.
Cliff Russell and his mother spend several minutes arguing about the disappearance of a card from the desk. It was yellow with a cat on it and a depiction of the World Trade Center towers burning - a joke card created before Sept. 11.
"It's there, but then it's not there," Cliff Russell says to his mother, miffed about the disappearance. "Somebody moved it."
"Nobody moved it," she responds, rifling through drawers. "It's here."
The money becomes the person. So do his belongings.
In the middle of the living room is a huge plant, more like a tree. It is 30 years old, an offshoot of a plant Steve gave to his mother when he was just 10. Mrs. Russell only enters the apartment to water the plant and look over the many trinkets reminding her of her son.
"I die every time," she says.
It is to that realization that the charity efforts go. It keeps the memory alive. For some, it keeps their dead loved one alive.
The Russells also have established a scholarship in their son's name. A part of it will never be spent. It would be like losing him all over again.
* * *
There is guilt among the surviving firefighters. They've helped the fatherless, sonless, brotherless families as much as they can, emotionally and financially, but they can't do it forever, not for a lifetime.
Such is the life of the families of Engine 55's lost men. Death is life. Newspapers, television, countless books and memorial after memorial hammer home the loss on a daily basis. It is an endless funeral.
For the majority of the world, 343 firefighters died. For these families, it was Chris Mozzillo, Lt. Peter Freund, Faustino Apostal, Bobby Lane and Stephen Russell. Five family members wiped out.
At some point, the organs will stop playing and the charity will cease. But for the Mozzillo, Lane, Freund, Apostal and Russell families, the smoke from the World Trade Center has yet to clear. The money fuels memories both good and bad. The scholarships and other gifts and purchases in the name of the fallen firefighters carry on their legacy as men devoted to helping others.
The money will not bring their loved ones back, but, in hearts turned desperate from death, it will keep them alive.
-30-
View the accompanying Web journal and photo gallery that ran with this series here: http://www.dailyherald.com/special/91102/journal.asp
James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer
Cliff Russell knew he could not find peace until he found his little brother.
It was Sept. 11. Engine Company 55 was responding to a gas leak just a few blocks from the World Trade Center when the first jet smashed the North Tower.
They were among the first rescue teams to arrive and four of the men ran into the tower. One stayed outside with the truck, as was procedure.
By the time the day was over, 353 firefighters died, but helped save 25,000.
The dead included five from Engine 55, including 40-year-old Stephen Russell. His body was buried with the rest of his fire fighting corps in that apocalyptic pile of concrete, twisted metal and human flesh.
Cliff Russell, an operations engineer and Stephen's older brother, lacked the training to work on "The Pile," where rescue teams already gingerly picked their way around the shifting rubble. But he knew where to get it. To find his little brother, he must become his little brother.
Russell never spent much time at Engine 55, but he knew where it was. Knocking on the door, he introduced himself and was taken to the captain. Capt. Tom Toomey stared at the hard-eyed visitor. Toomey, a gritty man with a take-charge attitude had already bucked protocol that morning, tired of waiting for orders that were slow in coming. With the firehouse only eight Chicago-blocks from Ground Zero, he sent his men back to the site to begin rescue and recovery.
"You want to look for your brother?" he said finally. "OK."
Cliff Russell took Stephen's boots, pants, coat and helmet from his brother's locker and put them on. He was in the same 6-foot range as Stephen. His gut protruded a bit farther over the belt, but the gear was nevertheless a good fit.
Toomey and the available firemen put Cliff through a crash course. He wouldn't have to become a firefighter overnight, just pass as one. When they finished, his newly acquired lingo and manners paired well enough with his brother's gear to get him past the police guards and onto the site. For a month and a half, Cliff Russell dug alongside the crew from Engine 55, wondering from moment to moment if the next severed hand, battered leg or crushed head he uncovered would belong to his little brother.
* * *
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Those words never painted a more accurate picture than they did on Sept. 11. In the weeks and months afterward, people rushed to donate money. Meanwhile, the recipients learned money never meant so much and so little at the same time.
In the year since Sept. 11, the Chicago area has raised tens of thousands of dollars for the families of the five fallen Engine 55 firefighters.
Residents here have supported the efforts of Barrington singer and stockbroker Joe Cantafio, who embarked on a year-long concert tour to raise money directly for the families of Engine 55 instead of routing it through established charities.
One of the men had a wife and young children. Another was already a grandfather. The others had parents, sisters, nieces and nephews. And all of them left behind their brothers at Engine 55.
Chris Mozzillo was the youngest member of the firehouse to die. He never reached his 28th birthday.
His lineage mapped out both his future and love of adventure. His father, Mike, now retired, was a New York firefighter. Chris's toys were die-cast fire trucks and little fire helmets. His idea of a good time included feeding sharks while swimming with them or pounding anyone who gave his sister, Pam, a tough time.
He could get up a staircase in full gear in seemingly a single bound. The men of Engine 55 believe Mozzillo climbed higher up into the towers than the rest of their crew.
That may be the reason his body is still missing, the only Engine 55 man not recovered.
Bobby Lane, 28, was always in motion. In addition to being a fireman, he was a Special Olympics volunteer, a member of the department's hockey and softball teams and a former college football player. When he wasn't doing all that, he loved to cook.
He hammed it up in firehouse photos, in one donning little, pink-rimmed sunglasses for the sake of a laugh.
The families of Mozzillo and Lane will use the money they receive to establish scholarships in their sons' names.
Faustino Apostal was the senior member of those lost. He rode in Engine 55 for more than two decades but was recently transferred out. On Sept. 11, he arrived at the scene, saw his old rig, grabbed a 55 helmet and raced into the burning towers behind the three who were already inside. He never came out.
He was a family man who married his high school sweetheart. A grandfather at 55, he would baby sit and mow the lawn. He couldn't bring himself to hang up his gear even as his colleagues retired. Firefighting was just too much fun. His family will likely use the money they get to establish a college fund for his grandchildren.
Lt. Peter Freund was also a family man. In his younger days, he was a hippie and never lost his kind, gentle ways. On the day he died, at age 45, he was known mainly as Daddy by his three young children.
In the confusion that marked the days after Sept. 11, Freund's colleagues were tormented by several reports that he was sighted working in the wreckage.
All proved bogus when his body was later discovered.
His wife, Robin, is thinking about using the money she gets to buy an athletic field and name it after Peter. A touching gift, but some of the firefighters worry what she'll do when the money is gone.
Lastly, there is the man they called MacGyver for his ingenuity around the firehouse. As the towers burned Sept. 11, Marie Russell stepped out onto the dock behind her house in the Rockaways section of Queens. Stretching out into Jamaica Bay, it provided a clear view of the fiery twin towers.
Peering through the viewfinder of her hand-held video camera, the white-haired, spectacled woman knew her son would be there, saving lives. She would make a video scrapbook of his bravery during a historic moment.
Then, one by one, the towers fell.
Marie went inside and closed the curtains. The windows remained shrouded for weeks. Her baby was gone.
* * *
For seemingly endless days, Cliff Russell chased ghosts. Somewhere in this unnatural graveyard was his brother.
The area to search was extensive and treacherous. Metal and concrete were not meant to lie this way. In some areas it rose as high as 50 feet above the street. Debris created chasms and mountains so steep that rescue workers had to sit and slide to get anywhere. Some pockets still blazed with fire, others radiated intense heat coming from no visible source.
But Cliff Russell avoided the most dangerous tasks. All he wanted was a shovel. If Steve was mixed in with the steel and blood, he would find him or go crazy trying.
For a week after Sept. 11, Cliff Russell worked every day. After that he came back several times a week, whenever he could, digging and bagging body parts.
In the early morning hours of Oct. 22, the call came.
"Engine 55, get up here!"
Steve was found. He was dead, but Cliff could finally begin to live again.
Cliff Russell's basement is filled with mementos. In one corner is a large, homemade poster. On the right side is a photo of Stephen Russell in his fire gear, smile on his face. On the left side, a photo of Cliff Russell wearing that same gear, fatigue on his face.
The relics he collected from the site are priceless in memoriam. A chunk of glass from a World Trade Center window sits near a small, round, polished box with Steve's name on it. It contains dirt from ground zero, and there are only about 3,000 like it in the world, each with a different name.
"It's what you have and if you were never recovered, it's still all you have," Russell says of the box.
Then comes another box.
Out of a small plastic container, Russell pulls out a hand-sized, Africa-shaped chunk of cement. It's part of an area known as stairwell 6b. It feels chalky. Visitors sniff the rock gingerly, like checking something in the refrigerator. A bitter taste shoots up the back of the tongue and remains for several seconds, like sucking on a hot penny. The smell is comparable to lighting a thousand sparklers and letting them burn all the way down at once while holding them.
It is the odor of 3,000 dead people mixed with molten metal and pulverized concrete.
To complete the journey, Russell displays an album of photos he took with disposable cameras. Everything in the pictures has an inch of powder on it, an unseasonable snow. There is a fire truck sitting in the middle of West Street with no tires on the rims. Melted.
Russell found bodies in various conditions depending on their location.
"Just like sleeping men," Russell said of one group of dead firemen.
Of another set of photos, he says, "On this day it was really bad because that's when we found legs, arms, torsos, and nobody ever had a head. Nobody in the street ever had a head."
"There's a lot of things that were answered," he added about the day they found Stephen. "He's not wandering around. He's not in the hospital and doesn't know who he is. I know where he is and we got him back and I can put him to rest. I made my peace. I don't have to talk to the ghosts that I used to talk to every morning."
As he flips through the album, music plays in the background. It's "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd. Cliff Russell looks sleepy, yet he bounces around with great energy. His heart is numb, but the mind still remembers. There is no full recovery, just acceptance.
It seems to be more than his parents have.
"People who lost somebody are not going to want to ask for money," Russell said of the charity efforts, Cantafio's included. "My mother gets a check, she gets upset. If the money that was in the check ever gets spent in its total, she's going to be very upset.
"There's a connection. Now the money becomes Steve. Everything becomes the person. It's whacked."
Steve had a bungalow apartment connected to his parents house. Now, Cliff Sr. and Marie tend to it, watering the plants he left behind but touching nothing else. Except for the contents of the refrigerator, the interior is frozen in time. The calendar in the makeshift office still reads September. Steve was scheduled to go skydiving the week of the 17th.
Cliff Russell and his mother spend several minutes arguing about the disappearance of a card from the desk. It was yellow with a cat on it and a depiction of the World Trade Center towers burning - a joke card created before Sept. 11.
"It's there, but then it's not there," Cliff Russell says to his mother, miffed about the disappearance. "Somebody moved it."
"Nobody moved it," she responds, rifling through drawers. "It's here."
The money becomes the person. So do his belongings.
In the middle of the living room is a huge plant, more like a tree. It is 30 years old, an offshoot of a plant Steve gave to his mother when he was just 10. Mrs. Russell only enters the apartment to water the plant and look over the many trinkets reminding her of her son.
"I die every time," she says.
It is to that realization that the charity efforts go. It keeps the memory alive. For some, it keeps their dead loved one alive.
The Russells also have established a scholarship in their son's name. A part of it will never be spent. It would be like losing him all over again.
* * *
There is guilt among the surviving firefighters. They've helped the fatherless, sonless, brotherless families as much as they can, emotionally and financially, but they can't do it forever, not for a lifetime.
Such is the life of the families of Engine 55's lost men. Death is life. Newspapers, television, countless books and memorial after memorial hammer home the loss on a daily basis. It is an endless funeral.
For the majority of the world, 343 firefighters died. For these families, it was Chris Mozzillo, Lt. Peter Freund, Faustino Apostal, Bobby Lane and Stephen Russell. Five family members wiped out.
At some point, the organs will stop playing and the charity will cease. But for the Mozzillo, Lane, Freund, Apostal and Russell families, the smoke from the World Trade Center has yet to clear. The money fuels memories both good and bad. The scholarships and other gifts and purchases in the name of the fallen firefighters carry on their legacy as men devoted to helping others.
The money will not bring their loved ones back, but, in hearts turned desperate from death, it will keep them alive.
-30-
View the accompanying Web journal and photo gallery that ran with this series here: http://www.dailyherald.com/special/91102/journal.asp
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