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Their own words #1: Loretta Fallon
Wednesday, September 19, 2001
South columnist Lorraine Mutschler of Whitehall has been friends with Loretta Moran Fallon for almost 50 years, from the time Lorraine went to work at the former Bell Telephone South office on Smithfield Street in Downtown Pittsburgh right out of high school.
Tom Fallon's e-mail: My God. What happened?
Lorraine Mutschler: All of us are touched by the tragedy
Loretta's husband, Tom, was originally from Dormont, and he and Loretta lived in Mt. Lebanon before moving to their mountain home near Shanksville, Somerset County.
He was the longtime leader of the Tom Fallon singers and vice president of Iron Age magazine until his second and final retirement in 1992.
Their sprawling farm was a verdant, tranquil mountain retreat until it was marred last week by the nearby crash of one of four jetliners hijacked by terrorists, who also destroyed New York's World Trade Center towers and assaulted the Pentagon in Virginia.
South shares the Fallons' stories as they shared them in e-mail exchanges with Lorraine, who provides an extra column this week on her own reflections on a terrible war of terror against America.
-- ROGER STUART, SOUTH EDITOR
From: Loretta Fallon [lorfal@earthlink.net]
Sent: Tues 09/11/2001 4:03 p.m.
To: Lorraine Mutschler [lmutschler2@earthlink.net]
Subject: Today's horror
The plane crashed about three miles from our farm. When it did, I was getting out of my car in our garage, felt the vibration and things in the house rattled. I said out loud to myself. "What the he** was that?" I had been listening to the car radio, so I knew about New York. I wondered briefly if the whole country was under attack.
Tom had gone alone in his car to get a blood test this a.m. at 8:30, and I had followed him to the hospital to help him get his wheelchair out. Then I was going to get my hair trimmed. But at the hospital, we discovered that the guy who had helped him yesterday had put the seat down before attaching the C clamp for the seat, thereby trapping the clamp. We had no alternative but drive to Boswell to the people who had recently installed this new and difficult lift.
Tom and I planned to be in touch via cell phone. Our plan was to probably meet back home and proceed to Oakhurst Tearoom for our regular Tuesday afternoon bridge game.
At about 9:30, I heard about the crashes in New York. As I was driving home, Tom called on my cell phone saying he was on his way home from Boswell. I told him about New York. He said he'd heard about it and we both planned to listen to the radio for news.
Now, again, back home in our garage, I look around. I cannot see what had made the big noise in the house. I go in, turn on TV for New York news. No TV ... No telephone ... no lights... no electricity... no water. And sirens were blaring all around the countryside. The only thing for me to do was be concerned that the entire country was under attack. Maybe the power companies have been shut down. My only connection with the outside world was my car radio (complicated by no cell phone reception in our valley).
I waited a long time for Tom with no idea what was keeping him. Finally, I decided to go intercept him on the road. I knew he'd be traveling Lambertsville Road. I found him on his way just a half-mile from home. He told me about the plane crash. It had happened near him. He saw the flash and the smoke but didn't see a plane. Someone told him what it was.
We decided we needed to stay connected to the world, and the way to do that might be just to go to the Oakhurst Tearoom, never really expecting anyone else would show up. But there were three ladies there. Tom stayed to play cards. I went to buy water in case we might be without for a while and to call Jeff from our cell phone, which does work on a high hill.
I asked Jeff to be in touch via e-mail to alert family that we're safe. And to try to reach the kids in New York. Jeff ultimately told me our electricity was probably now on because he and Nancy had been able to leave a message. (Which, in case you also tried to leave one, wasn't on the answering machine when we got home ... another glitch in communication).
We're fine, thank God. Please remember to pray for those poor souls who started out today like any other and are no longer with us or are despairing about missing loved ones. ...
Two days later, there are police cars surrounding our road and property and helicopters hovering overhead. Verizon trucks line the country roads, their crews noisily cutting down trees to clear a path to run cable to provide communications for the search teams.
The search for wreckage has intensified to cover the 3-mile radius from the crash site and reached the woods by our home. The police said if we find any debris from the plane, we are not to touch it but to notify police immediately.
Our lives in this quiet little hamlet may never be the same.
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