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Tuesday, March 12, 2002

By Tom Gibb, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

SHANKSVILLE, Pa. -- On a day when she would have been welcomed to ceremonies at the White House, tiny, white-haired Philomena Nacke came instead to visit a lonesome knoll here.

Winter had turned miles of scrubgrass-thatched countryside dreary brown. A ceaseless breeze made a 32-degree morning seem 15 degrees colder.

	Philomena Nacke sinks to her knees at a handmade angel inscribed with the name of her son, Louis Nacke II, of New Hope, Pa., who died in the crash of United Flight 93 on Sept. 11. Her daughter-in-law, Marci Nacke, wife of the crash victim's brother, and a state trooper help her to her feet. (V.W.H. Campbell Jr./Post-Gazette)

But Nacke came here because this is where her son is. Like the 43 others who rode pirated United Airlines Flight 93 into the Somerset County countryside six months ago yesterday, most of 42-year-old Louis Nacke II's remains are forever part of these quiet hillsides.

"My heart is here. This is where I need to be. ... I'm comfortable here," said Nacke, a 71-year-old with a face molded in geniality. "This is where his father and I basically buried our son."

Yesterday, six months after her son perished, 4 1/2 months after her husband collapsed and died unexpectedly, Nacke, of Ocean Pines, Md., looked over a row of handmade angels, one for each victim, and found the one with her son's name.

She sank to her knees.

"I love you," she sobbed.

Friends and relatives of the victims and residents of the area packed a small church in rural Shanksville to hear Protestant pastors, the head priest of the Zen Center in Pittsburgh and a Muslim imam speak about the tragedy.

Two miles away, at a temporary memorial looking down 600 yards of reclaimed strip mine to the crash site, officials dedicated a plaque carrying the names of all aboard Flight 93 except the terrorists.

At two local schools, an inspirational speaker carried a message of patriotism, and an estimated 800 people last night packed a service at the Somerset Christian and Missionary Alliance Church.

For this area -- which saw its rural serenity shattered when Flight 93 crashed, then rose to comfort the grieving families who came to mourn -- it was another day in the dual role of injured and comforter.

"When you lose a loved one, remember, that's how these people felt who had families on Flight 93," Gary Singel, superintendent of Shanksville-Stonycreek School District, told 380 pupils during an assembly yesterday. "We unwittingly became on Sept. 11 the host to the world. ... It's now our duty to support other people and give other people hope."

This is a place that remains decked in flags, where county Coroner Wallace Miller has acted as protector of the crash site and contact for the mourners.

"The people here have been just wonderful," said Kathy Collins, a United supervisor and friend of victim Lorraine Bay, a 58-year-old flight attendant from East Windsor, N.J. "They show tremendous respect instead of just curiosity."

Ten friends and family members of three of Flight 93's victims were in Shanksville, some serene, some swollen-eyed for a day that started with a 90-minute service in Shanksville United Methodist Church.

In the midst of it all, the 230 people who overflowed the sanctuary and packed a side room, went utterly still for seven minutes as Rev. Robert Way, local Evangelical Lutheran minister, read a list of the victims -- an acolyte lighting a candle and the church bell tolling at each name.

Amidst messages from eight clergy was a plea from Fouad El Bayly, imam for the Islamic Center of Johnstown and Somerset. He called the passengers aboard Flight 93 "heroes" and the Sept. 11 hijackings "murder, cold-blooded."

"That was not permitted by the holy Quran," he said. "We don't support it and we don't condone it."

The day brought messages of defiance, too.

"You can destroy our buildings ... but you will never, ever, ever take away our freedom," Atlanta-based religious and secular motivational speaker Lori Salierno told Shanksville-Stonycreek students.

And it brought messages of condolence.

At the hilltop memorial, 40 youngsters, grades 5 to 8 from the pacifist Spring Valley Bruderhof Community at Farmington, Fayette County, sang to mourners, "Even though your heart is breaking ... don't be afraid, there is an angel by your side."

From the time Nacke's son Louis was 4 until he was 10, the family lived in Monroeville, where Louis attended St. John Catholic School, one stop in an odyssey of schools and homes that came with her husband's reassignments with the A&P grocery chain.

Before Sept. 11, though, Nacke knew little of this stretch of country.

Now, four visits later, she feels a part of it.

"I feel like I belong here, with the people of this town, of this community," Nacke said as she stood 20 yards away. "They were like a bunch of angels, just engulfing us."