April 22, 2025 • 61 mins
On September 11th, Welles saved 12 of the only 18 survivors who were at or above the floors where the plane struck the World Traded Center’s South Tower. He’s known as “The Man In The Red Bandana”, because that’s what he wore that day and had with him every day since he was a young boy. His mother Alison pays tribute to her late son.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey, everybody's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
And we continue now a part two of our conversation
with Alison Crowther right after these brief messages from our
general sponsors, and right after Allah rings the bell. All right,
(00:36):
so you have this it's an evil day, and you
believe that to be true because of your experiences in
your life, which those of us listening could choose to
hear that or not. But all you got to do is, look,
this is a very adorable woman having this conversation, and
(00:57):
it's a very real thing. So the plane hits the
building and you get a message that he's okay, and
then the second plane hits and and the thing falls down,
(01:19):
and you are absolutely convinced well S gone yeah, based
on the way well grew up, based on what Wells
was the human being. His was the phone call to
his dad to say I want to be a fireman,
his revelation in Spain and Italy that he felt like
(01:43):
his life was meant to serve other lives, and all
culminated in that two hours. Yea, yes, did tell us
about those two hours?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Well, they were I mean during the time that the
towers had lapsed in what was going on? Yeah, yeah,
my coworkers drove me home. My Honor was working up
in Mount Kissko, which was also in Westchester. Her boyfriend
then husband now drove her across. He always kept he
(02:17):
kept the car, but he kept a big tractor trailer
between going west across the tap and Zee, so Honor
wouldn't see the burning of the towers and all. He
protected her from that. He was wonderful still is, they're both.
I'm so blessed with two wonderful sons in law. Anyway,
so I got I was like numb. I didn't eat
(02:39):
for days. I mostly walked, I space, I stayed up.
I stayed up well into the night. I drank a
lot of water. That saved me. I stayed up well
into the like two and three o'clock in the morning,
because that was the only time you could really get
through to hospitals, and I can't.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
I spent two three days, and you hadn't heard from right.
Your worst fears and your premonitions of your intuition that
he was gone became very real at this point.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Well, here's what happened. Like this, I think the second
or third night into my staying up until like the
middle of the night, I got up to stretch my legs.
My laptop was down in my phone I was working
from my office space, which was in the bottom floor.
Wells's bedroom was also down there. So I got up
(03:32):
and I'm walking around the basement to sort of stretch out,
and suddenly I sensed this. All I can describe it
is a huge energy space, like an energy like shape
like that right right here, right there. And I said, oh, Wells,
(03:54):
that's you. If you can do that, I know you're okay.
And also I knew he was really gone, so I
stopped looking. I knew he was not coming back. But
that presence was powerful, and it just it just freed
(04:15):
me from trying to keep finding his living body. It
never stopped me from looking for what happened to him,
because I kept watching everything and reading everything that I
could looking for him, which is ultimately how I came
across the article in the New York Times and identified him.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
So eventually some police calm. He's identified by his fingerprons.
I can't even imagine what that conversation is for a
(04:58):
mother and a father and a family. But even so,
your question is what happened between mamam okay and his
body being in the rubble. Yeah, and then you found
out the most extraordinary thing and how extraordinary your son is.
(05:20):
And look, this is an army of normal folks. We
highlight stories of normal people who do extraordinary things. So far,
we've heard a a human interest story about you and
(05:42):
your son and your family, which is heartwarming and gut wrenching.
But we're about to get to the meat of just
how extraordinary your son is. But explain to us how
you found him quote found him, and what you learned,
(06:06):
and and tying it back to that faithful Sunday warning
where your husband gave him a handkerchief.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
I will I was, as I said before, I spent
a lot of time reading anything I could, watching any programs,
trying to catch a glimpse of him. Something kept driving
me that if I kept looking, someday i'd find him.
Just I wouldn't stop. Now, it's probably just a mother's
(06:38):
instinct to do that anyway, but but that was me.
So time goes on. We hadn't heard anything or learned
anything at all, and my husband was reading he we
got the New York Times, and he was reading this
section and he saw this headlines fighting to live as
the towers died, and he could not. My husband couldn't
(07:02):
read anything or see anything. He just was so emotionally
damaged that it just he soldiered on. But he couldn't
do the searching that I was doing.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Your husband best bodies yes, yeah, literally, best.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Body yeah yeah. So he said, here, you may want
to read this, because he knew I was always looking.
So he handed me the paper. I took it into
our bedroom and sat sat down on the bed and
started reading. And I get to this section. It was
for four New York Times reporters that put stories together
based on interviews, best on phone messages, last reports of
(07:37):
people being seen. And there was a section called nine
oh two or nine oh three in the South Tower
sky lobby. Well, the sky lobby on the seventy eighth
floor was where express elevators would go up from the
ground floor lobby to then take people who were in
the upper floors. There were another thirty floors to go
(07:57):
almost for people. So there was this big second lobby
if they called it the sky lobby. And oh, well
before that, I should say he was recovered. He was
recovered on March nineteenth of oddly I know of two
thousand and two, and he was found with Donald Burns,
(08:18):
who was instant commander with the FDNY and his men.
So when we were informed of that, I said, yes, Wells,
you know you went to the top. Good for you,
we did, and there the Medical Examiner's office with people
were saying, well, he was probably acting like a civilian usher,
in other words, holding open the doors so people could
run out, and I just knew, no, Wells was not
(08:39):
going to do that. Not well, yeah, no, that was
not well So they were found with a hearst tool.
They all clumped together. They actually were blown up against
the side of four World Trade because of the power
of the tower coming down and acting like a big
bellows and that's that's how they were ultimately found in March.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
One thing else and two with what they found him.
I've always found this remarkable. So there was twenty seven
to fifty three Ground Zero victims that day. They recovered
sixteen seventy four of the bodies, and only two hundred
ninety three were intact, including Wells, And I've always found
it remarkable that any of them were intact. If you
had this entire building collapse on you the fact that
his body was intact is insane.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Well he was. He was missing part of his jaw
and his right hand, so I know, but there's a biblical.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Reputy you could say that.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Well, I don't know. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
It just it'll apologizes.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
It's just I just try to be as factual as
I can with this. I try to be. I thank
my parents and grandparents for that. They so well. Anyway,
so back to back to that day. So actually the
call from the police officer came on the Friday first,
(10:01):
and I was with my daughter who was auditioning for
the classical ballet program at Sunny Purchase, which has a
very fine classical ballet program. And I was reading from
this woman that I mentioned to you about who talks
about the universe, and it said you speak your heart
(10:23):
to the universe, and the universe can't help but respond.
So I closed the book. This page was coming down
for lunch, and I said to myself, all right, Universe,
here we go. I wasn't sure I believed in it,
but I okay, let's try this. So I would somehow
like to be reunited with our son, so that so
(10:44):
I can because I had all this these premonitions in
these spiritual experience experiences along with what Wells did, so
that somehow we can bring our stories out into the world.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
I would imagine many people like you knew their loved
ones were lost, but they just wanted to know where
and be able to put them to rest.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Right, that's right, and.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
It's that's what you're looking for at this boy.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Oh yeah, just yeah. I mean it was horrible to
be to have nothing, really, it was horrible. Anyway, So
I closed the book, page, comes down for lunch, and
this isn't about ten minutes time, my cell phone rings.
It's my friend called my housekeeper calling to say, Alison,
(11:29):
the police are at the door, knocking at the door,
the police, they'd like to speak with you. And I'm like,
oh my god. We had a boxer and a Labrador
retriever at the time, and I thought, oh, what have
they done?
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Now?
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Did they get loose? They were, you know, gallivanting around
the neighborhood. What's happened? Oh lord? So I get on
and the policeman said, hi, missus Crowther, I'm officers so
and so are you driving? I said, no, he's I said,
why do I need to sit down or something. I
I thought this was going to be really bad. Maybe
(12:02):
they attacked somebody. I not my dogs, but hope, you know, Okay,
So I sat down and he said, your son's been
recovered from ground zero. That was ten minutes after I
spoke my heart to the universe to say, you know,
so I had to collect myself and because I didn't
(12:24):
want my daughter to know at that point, because she
had to go back and complete her auditions and dancing,
and so I soldiered up and went back and finished up.
And she went up to finish her her auditions and
a mother, another woman mother there, came over to me
(12:44):
and said, are you all right? You look pretty upset,
and I said, well, my son's just been recovered from
ground zero. And you know, she was pretty shocked to
hear that. So after Page comes down afterwards, and my
daughters are very bright and also have their sensitivities too,
I think. Anyway, so I told Page on the drive back,
(13:05):
I said, Page, you know they've recovered your brother and
she said, oh wow, And then she said what day
did they recover him? I said on Tuesday, And I
didn't even think put the date. She said, you know, mom,
that's the nineteenth of March, so yeah, they were clued
into that. So that was one part of it, but
(13:25):
we didn't know the whole story until I was reading
the Times then in the end of May. It was
a special piece that they'd done for Memorial Day weekend,
and I saw this section fighting, you know, fighting to
live as the towers died, this section of nine oh
(13:46):
three in the South Tower sky lobby. So I knew
Wells was in his office that morning, but he'd gotten
down below to work with the firefighters. That's where they
found him. So we had to have been passing through
the sky lobby at about the time the plane hit,
and I said to myself, well, if I'm ever going
to see anything about Wells, it's going to be in here.
So I started reading the section, and sure enough, there
(14:09):
were ling Young and Judy Ween, two women that were rescued,
referencing this man wearing a red one set of red
handkerchief I think the other said a red bandana, and.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
That I did not know, Oh yeah, did not know
his name completely anonymous, right, But this guy, this innocuous guy,
and a red bandana saved their loss.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, and he had he found a fire extinguisher was
putting out small fires, trying to administer aid because some
people were still alive but devastatingly injured. I'm not even
going to describe some of the injuries. And he found
Judy Ling, Judy Ween, no excuse me, Ling Young. First,
she was burned over forty percent of her body.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
She couldn't see because her her glasses were.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Filled filled with blood, but she was able to wipe
them off, so she's so and so he got her
and carried away over his shoulder down to about what
they estimate was the sixty eighth floor from the seventy
eighth floor, the sixty first floor from the seventy eighth floor,
so seventeen stories. Ling said, can I put down this
(15:15):
fire extinguisher? And Well said, yes, you'll probably be fine
because down there the lights were on, you know, things
still looked pretty good, so they were, you know, he said,
just keep going. I have to go, and he put
the woman down. He said, you have to keep going
on your own. I have to go back up and
help more people. So he turned and that's when he
had the bandana off its face, so Ling actually saw
(15:36):
him his full face. So he went back up and
that's when he found Judy Wayne and the people she
was with, and he directed them to the stairwell and
got them going down and apparently went back in to
just make sure check on anybody else. And so he eventually,
after all of that up and down, he made it
all the way down to the ground level. I mean,
(15:57):
it was just but he moved fast. He was he
was a runner. He moved fast and knew what he
was doing. So he called out, you know, there are
people you can save, There are people people, there are
people you can help. There are people you can't help.
Only help those you can help, and get up and
stand now and move with me now. So he was
it was Ling said it was his voice, the command
(16:19):
in his voice that gave her because they were afraid
the floors were going to fall out from underneath them.
So yeah, so that's how we found out.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
The thing is, you do none of this, no none,
And you read the Times and this woman is just
describing this guy with this red bandana. So as you're
recounting that story, did you say, oh, that's got to
be Oh.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, right away, I said, oh my god, wells I've
found you. That's exactly what I said, and I went
running into my husband. I said, Jeff, I've found Wells.
Look it's he's right here saving people. He's got the
red bandana. That's Wells Jeff. And my husband said, don't
to say, don't you know don't He kind of poop
pooed it. I think he I don't know what was
(17:05):
in his mind, but he just maybe maybe it was
too much for him to hope for. Maybe that was it.
So we didn't want to raise his hopes, but I was.
I said, I'm going to track these women down and
find out for sure. So the next day I called.
I couldn't find any information on finding ling, but I
was able to learn in the article that Judy Wayne
(17:26):
worked for a ON. So I called AON and they said,
oh yes. I said, I don't expect you to give
me her phone number, but I think it was my
son that saved her. So here's my phone number, and
if it is and she wants to call me, could
she please call me. So by that afternoon she called
me and she said, she said, can you send me
(17:48):
some pictures? So I sent her up that picture of
Wells with you know, his senior picture, and she said
and she moved sent that around, and because they kept
the people that survived from the South Tower, they're only
of the two hundred people estimated waiting there, they were
only eighteen that actually survived down that day. The woman, yes, yeah,
(18:13):
the woman that Wells set down. Ling said come on,
you have to come. I'm going, and the woman said,
I can't. I can't, I'm too tired, I can't move.
So she never survived, but the eighteen that did kept
like an email group chat going for months, and so
Judy sent this out to the group, and Ling's son
(18:34):
responded by saying, my mother thinks this might be the man.
Can you send us pictures? So I sent her a
picture of Wells, and then I sent her another one
that was more casual that had been taken in June,
where Wells a member of Empire, also a captain. I'm
not sure what his title was, but he was in
charge of the John D. McCain fireboat that fought the
(18:55):
fires at ground zero. Harry Wannamaker had invited Jeff and
my son onto there, onto the John D. McCain for
some sort of party or something the end of June
two thousand and one. So Wells said Hey, dad, can
you get a picture of Harry and me? And be
sure you get the world the World Trade Center towers
in the background. So my husband did, and so that's
(19:20):
the picture. I cut out the towers so they couldn't
she couldn't see that. I didn't want to sway her
in any way. And then her son said, well, my
mom thinks it's my mom thinks it's him. But here's
a couple of questions. And also I hadn't set them
sent them more casual picture yet, or if they hadn't,
he hadn't shown it to his mother. But he said,
(19:40):
was what what color was the handkerchief? I said, well,
if it was solid red, that wouldn't be wells. It
would have been a bandana with a pattern that would
have been wells. He said okay, and he said what
kind of what kind of t shirt would he be wearing?
Because he was stripped down, and that's like wells, he
would have stripped down.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
I said, well, take office.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Right, yeah, he's And it was anyway casual anyhow by them,
because that didn't start until a little bit later. The
more formal dress. And I said, well, it would be
like a crew neck, short sleeve Brooks Brothers type T shirt.
It wouldn't have been like a you know, tank top
and shed he said, yep, that's okay, that's okay. So
(20:22):
so Richard Young was her son that was handling. He
is now an EMT from all of this experience. He
had now right, he said, I wanted to show my
mom the picture and get her immediate response to seeing it.
So I took the picture and she was sitting and
I turned it and I saw her face. Yes, that
(20:46):
was him right away.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
What was that feeling.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I was overjoyed, frankly, because to me, the most horrible thing,
and it was cold, and even when we got his
body back and had him bury, I felt so cold
because I felt like I was still disconnected from him
in a way. I was so overjoyed he was gone,
(21:12):
but at least now we knew he made his choices
that day he was. To me, the greatest suffering would
have been if he was trapped and couldn't move. That
would have been a torture for him in the end.
That would have been a complete and I was so
worried that that's how it was for him. So when
I found out that he was able to do what
he did, and that was before we knew the whole story.
(21:35):
I just was overjoyed, yell, well, as you went to
the top, you went to the insitant commander of the
fire department there for the South Tower, to see what
you could do. I just was so overjoyed that he
died with his boots on. Basically, he died a man
of action.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
We'll be right back. Two hundred people in that sky
lobby eighteen survived. Twelve of those eighteen two thirds are
(22:21):
living today because of your son.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah, and maybe some of the others too, But they
haven't responded. I mean, we never tried to track anybody down.
They've kind of surfaced, some of the people doing the
research and to do the ESPN and another film that
came out interviewed and I've met more people now as
a result. I just met for the first time last
(22:45):
September another gentleman, Keating Crown, who well saved as well,
and I he never reached out or I heard stories
about him, and we didn't know for sure whether or not,
but he came up to me. We were a big dinner
fundraiser for them, an annual for the nine eleven museum,
and he's a big supporter, he and his family, and
he found me. He came up to me and he said,
(23:06):
he said, it's because of your son. I'm here today
and my children are here today. And it's just it
was very moving.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
What what goes through you? What a human being looks
at you and says, these children exist because of your son.
It is sacrificed.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
It's powerful. It's powerful, don't. I don't, it's not. It's
just a sense of the goodness of Wells. It's really
all about Wells, and I, of course I'm proud of him,
but it isn't a source of hubris is like the
(23:41):
worst thing, and it's not a source of that for me.
It's just gratitude that these beautiful people live. And maybe
some of some people have even said, we were afraid
to come tell you because we didn't know how you
would feel, whether you'd be angry with us. I'm angry. No,
I'm so happy you're alive. It's okay. That was Wells's mission,
(24:04):
that was his purpose as a firefighters, a trained firefighter,
that's your purpose to save lives.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
As in an army. Normal folks, we say all the time,
it's almost redundant and our listeners right now, most of
them will be like, probably Bill quits saying it, but
I'm going to anyway, it's my show. I'm allowed to.
Is the most amazing thing happened when the most of
(24:30):
the amazing things in the world happened when a person's
passion and disciplined intersected opportunity.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Oh absolutely, we are.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
That is you know you My concern is for your
son is that these two to two and a half
hours defined his life. But his life was defined long
before this.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Yes, it was from a very early age.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
This was just another thing we have. Is you know,
people talk about football build character. I think that's crap.
I don't think football builds character. I think football reveals character.
I think all of the preparation you do in your
life leading up to tough times tough Oh what doesn't
(25:17):
you know, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger,
And you know tough times build character. I just don't
believe that. I think all the preparation you do in
your life for when the tough time hits you, that
don't build character. You build your character up until that point,
and when the tough times hit you, that's when it
has an opportunity to reveal character. And for me, the
(25:42):
beauty of all of it is, You're split set, his
whole life building for this moment, and the result of
his passion, his discipline, and his commitment is life. When
opportunity met, he saved others. Yeah, that is a normal
(26:03):
person making an extraordinary difference in the world and they're
off spread of their Yeah, I get it's dot Hubris
and I have to I mean, I can only imagine
both the pride and the humility you feel. But in
(26:24):
his short life, what a legacy.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Well, thank you. I'm just so happy for Wells. I
just was happy for Wells that he was able to
do what he did in those final hours that because
I know he was feeling he was feeling focused, and
he was knowing he was making a difference.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
The fact that he called up and said, this is
what I want to do with my life. I don't
want to sit behind this computer and he ended up.
He didn't die at that computer. He died doing what
he wanted to do. Yeah. Do you think when he
went back up that last time he knew the rescue
(27:09):
atacud uh?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Probably? Yeah, he had to have known the risk. He's
a smart guy. But his mission was to save lives.
And I've even had some young people who were firefighters
and gone on to be paid firefighters, and you know,
regular companies say, you know, I don't know if I'd
be able to do that. But that was not Wells.
(27:34):
Wells was Wells was just different. I mean, he just
was such a courageous soul and from the time he
was time he was a little kid, he was always
leaping from the higher highest places, and you know, just
had a big heart, and you know, he cared for animals,
he cared for people. So a friend and why, okay,
(27:58):
here's my thinking. A friend of mine asked once why
does evil exist in the world? And I said, I'm
supposed to answer that. How can I answer that? And
she said you have to, Okay, So I thought about it,
and I said, well, I guess evil exists in the
(28:19):
world because if evil didn't exist, then we'd be all
here happy, jaunty, jolly, you know, like, what's the purpose
of that? And so I really fully believe that we're
here on this earth. I have deep faith in God,
and I believe in the afterlife and the whatever for
a life, if there is one.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
But I.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Think that's our purpose here in this physical form on earth,
to build our souls from wherever we start off, to
build our character, to build our souls, to look at challenges,
to look at evil, to see how we respond, and
in how we respond is how we.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Build our souls, you know, coming full circle. If somebody
had come to Wells and said, hey, Wells, think about
what you're doing right now, because what you do right
now will define what could be the rest of your life,
much like the advice Wells gave to his friend in
(29:23):
high school, and it'll probably still run up the stairs.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah, well, and maybe that did go through his mind
and he would say, did it well, he probably would say,
I feel guilty forever if I leave anybody behind. I
think that's probably maybe more what he was thinking.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
So here's the deal. The story of wells life, the
story of his death, cannot be so proud. It's profound
that it over shadows the story of his life, which
was about leadership and about caring for others, and about
(30:08):
being part of the team and about caring and so
as as all inspiring as the story of the last
three hours of your son's life is and is phenomenal,
as the discovery of that story through Jeff giving him
(30:34):
a red handkerchief which connected everything to everything, which if
you don't think there's divinity involved in it, I can't
talk to you because clearly there is. Now there's a
curriculum to honor not his death, but his life. Tell
(30:54):
me about that.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Well, thank you for asking. Yes, we're very proud of this.
Formed a charitable trust in two thousand and one when
this happened, so we because people were giving us money
like crazy. A fire department gave us like thirteen thousand
dollars from Maine, made a collection of different houses up
in Maine sent that. So what are we going to do?
(31:15):
Let's start. We started this. So ten years into doing
our charitable work, I'd been also invited to schools and
speak and we were getting a lot of letters.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
From Stades and all those other times.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Yeah, things were happening. Well Espen called because that was
Wells's buddy, Drew Gallagher from Boston College worked for ESPN,
so this was his brains child, and we're forever thankful.
He won a sports Immy as a result, which is
very nice.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
I didn't know that it deserved it. Listen, I sat
on the airplane, and the guy next to me thought
I was an idiot because I watched it crying on
the airplane like a big baby only two days ago.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Oh dear. Well, anyway, so ten years into this, we
get a call from.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
By the way, your husband is who made me cry?
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Oh yeah, because related as a father, your father.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
I mean, your husband, the love he has for his son.
There's no camera, angle or producer or director that can
make what that was. And I thought about my own
(32:30):
children and if I had lost one of my own
in this way, and I crawled inside your husband's heart
just died a little with him. It's so very real. Yeah,
(32:53):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Oh no, that's okay. No, it's important to people understand
the connection that fathers can have with each other. Anyway,
So another friend of our sons, Timothy Epstein, who is
an attorney in Chicago now, was working as an advisor
on a special project for the Fetzer Institute, which is
(33:14):
based in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The purpose of this study was
how to kind of learn more about how love and
forgiveness can work in the world. So they had sixteen
different areas of focus and Tim called and said, would
you like to. I'm inviting you to make your like
what would be your next creative step for the trust?
So I said, I know what we need. We need
(33:36):
to write some lessons, create some lessons around Wells's story
because people are teaching about Wells and it would be
nice to be able to, you know, communicate some specific
lessons and values on character along with this. So I said,
but I have to call a friend of mine. I
called Renoi Paolini, who was an educator retired in New
(34:00):
Jersey who had been invited by the Nine to eleven
Museum to write lessons and she chose about artifacts. So
she chose Wells's red bandana to write about, and that's
how we got to know her. She was just amazing
and so the FETs we put together proposals of fetsren
Institute funded us and we created the Red Bandana Project,
(34:21):
which are lessons on leadership, caring for Others, Team, the
Power of One, Forgiveness, Bridging Divides, Bridging Divides, Forgiveness, and
Carpe DM seven different lessons each in five different categories
elementary school, middle school, high school, sports teams and camps,
and youth programs. And there was a specialist in each
(34:42):
area that BRNOI and I pulled together to create these lessons.
It was such an organic, wonderful time. I was so
excited about this work and proud of it. And so
now ten years later, we've had the middle school lessons
updated and digitized, so they are you can people.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Where used well in schools.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
They're being used in schools. We're trying to get them
out more, which is part of our mission now to
spread the word because teachers that use them are finding
them to be really excellent. There's a teacher in Scarsdale
Middle School that has been teaching the forgiveness lesson for years. Now.
I go and speak to her group. I grew up there,
(35:27):
so it's going like kind of going home for me
a bit. My mother was an art teacher there too
for twenty two years. So and our local YMCA, Rock
and County YMCA has been teaching the middle school lessons.
They said they're just great. I am now in the
process of talking hopefully soon with the CEO of the
Boys and Girls Club of Los Angeles about hopefully seeing
(35:49):
how we could work together on using these So. I
think it's hard for schools because they have so much
to cover with their usual curriculum. It takes a special
teacher to engage with extra things. So, but they're now
available free for downloading on our website, crowdertrust dot org.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
So that's what I was going to say. So, if
you've got a youth group, or if you're a teacher
or whatever, you can download this curriculum for free, depending
on whatever age group it is, and teach these very
fundamental tendons, all inspired by your son.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Yeah, yes, and other stories too. They you know, they
do bring in other stories as examples of what regular
people can.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Do, for instance, forgiveness. This lesson helps students to find
forgiveness of both personal societal context while exploring how forgiveness
can positively impact individuals and communities. I read that, and
I thought, in our broken, evil, divided, polarized world, how
(37:08):
far could forgiveness go to solving so much of what
deels us?
Speaker 2 (37:13):
I think just about everything.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
CARPIDM. This lesson encourages students to analyze quotes on seizing
the day, identify personal obstacles, explore how wells crowd overcame challenges,
and create their own philosophy for overcoming obstacles. In other words,
don't be a victim, go seize the day the power
(37:38):
of wood. This lesson explores the power of wood property
students to reflect on its relevance, journal on how compassion
influenced Wells Crowler, and recognize others who made an impact.
I can't think of a cooler Your son's legacy is
(37:58):
such a short time. Are the lives of the people
saved their offspring. But also now this curriculum of tendants
of how to lead a more fulfilling and beatingful life.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Yeah, it's really powerful stuff, and I mean we're truly
blessed that we have so many people around us. Empower
an investment company. I don't know if you're familiar with it.
It's pretty big. They do retirement funds and things based
out in Colorado, but the CEO is a Boston College
alum and he is all about Wells. They were very
(38:37):
generous and financed are updating of the lessons and the
digitizing of it, and we're still working with them today.
It is powerful stuff. And when I go to speak
at school, I travel around the country now speaking at
schools quite a bit. I'm going to be in Tennessee.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
That's a great state.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Yes, I know I'm going to be in Knoxville speaking
at the web School. I'm there school, Yes, I gather
and the lacrosse coach put me there because he talked
to a friend of our sons who played with him
at West Point, and then another friend from Boston College
(39:16):
that I guess played with him in some sort of tournament. Anyway,
so I'll be the commencement speaker for their graduating seniors,
and then the next day I'm going to speak to
the rest of the school population. When I talked to them,
I like to say, I like to say, Wells was
a lot like you. You know, he was a regular kid.
He was a lot like that, maybe not quite such
(39:38):
a normal folks. He was a normal kid, had friends,
got into some mischief, but always was very apologetic for
any I mean, he only did one really crazy thing.
But anyway, I like to teach the difference, try to
help them understand the difference between despotic leadership and enlightened leadership.
To me, that's very important and what involves in enlighten
(40:00):
leadership and as these other factors caring for others, the
power of one, I say to you them, it lies
within each and every one of you. To make a
difference in this world. And it can be multiple times
throughout the day, choosing how you react to a situation
or how you deal with something. You can either make
something better or make something worse. You can make someone
(40:21):
happy or you know, somebody drops their books, stop and
help them pick them up. Or sit with a kid
that's sitting by themselves at the lunch table. Get to
know them, you know. Just do the kind thing, not
the not the cruel thing, the do the selfless thing,
not the selfish thing.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
All right, So World War time is somebody what was
the doubtless load this curricul They go.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
To crowdertrust dot org www dot crowd trust dot org
and you will see their links to the Red Bandana
Project and a bunch of history. And I will say
this one last thing, if.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
You're worrying, the water is up.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
When Wells was working at his office, he carried his
red bandana with him every He continued to care Harriot
throughout his life. The weekend before the Sunday before Tuesday,
we were down in the city having dinner with him.
We're walking across the street and Wells pulled out of
his back pocket a red bandana wrapped around his comb.
(41:15):
I said, Wells, are you still carrying that thing? You're
working on Wall Street now, I can't believe you're still
carrying nothing. And he just gave me this like catlike grin.
You know, he just loved the response. But yes, I
you know, yes I am. Apparently I learned much later
through research done by Tom Ornaldy that there was a
woman at his office. Wells always carried his red bandana,
(41:36):
put it on his office desk, and she said to
him one day, Wells, what is it with that red bandana?
Why are you carrying that red bandana all the time?
And Wells just smiled her and picked it up and
held it up and he said, with this red bandana,
I'm going to change the world.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Ud believable. Yeah, Eddie did, and he did and.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
He is doing it. And I say to young people,
I said, don't let anybody take your power away from you.
Don't do that. Know that you have the power within
you to make decisions, to make choices no matter what's
around you. It's how you respond.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
We'll be right back. We're an army. Adorable folks. Tell
us stories of normal people who do extraordinary things, whether
(42:37):
their passionate discipline meets an opportunity, and Alison, your son
taught us that lesson with his life, but more totally,
he continues to teach us the lesson through this curriculum
and through you being so willing and so selfless to
(42:57):
share what has to be so hard to share. But
I guess in a way that's kind of how wells
would have done it anyway.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Yeah, yeah, And I think I think also, you know
that I've shared this before that I have a question
answer period always when I go to talk to schools,
and some of the questions are pretty amazing. In the
last one, I was at the Belmont Hills School up
in Massachusetts speaking a couple of weeks ago, and this
(43:30):
young man stoop and said, what what did you learn
most about yourself with nine to eleven? And that would
nobody ever asked me that question before? And I said, well,
you know, there's to myself where there's the family support,
the friends support, all of that that helped make things good.
Said But I said to him, I said, what I
(43:50):
really learned that was new was about the power of
the spiritual side of what was involved in this. And
I didn't go into a lot of detail about it.
But that premonition gave me strength. It opened the door
to show me that there are and since then other
things have happened too, but to show me that that
(44:13):
there are forces that we can't touch. It's faith, it's God,
it's whatever forces are. There are reasons that things happen
in life. And it's like a big and I remember
thinking this in the beginning, it's going to be like
a big jigsaw puzzle we're putting back together. I'm still
putting the pieces back together as all this plays out.
(44:34):
With what we're doing now, it's not the story is
not over yet. The story is not over yet. There's
more to come and it's and it's powerful, and that
has given me huge strength. I remember taking remember soon
after nine to eleven, and I was in pretty much
(44:54):
a state of shock for number of days. But the Thursday, Friday,
Friday morning, I woke up thinking, you know why. I
thought for a long time, why couldn't I do anything?
Why couldn't I do something to stop, to help wells,
to get you know, to tell people to get out whatever.
And I felt very guilty. I felt guilty that I
(45:16):
wasn't able to process the premonition I had into being
able to save the people that didn't make it. And
then that Friday morning I woke up and then I realized, Oh,
it was another series of epiphanies I had about this.
This was the next one. This message was just meant
for me. It was just meant for me, and what
(45:39):
am I going to do about it? So I met,
I called my minister. I said I have to talk
to you in church and I went and sat. I said,
out of your office, we have to go into the sanctuary,
sit before the cross. So I'm you know, I'm telling
you the honest truths. And he was wonderful. He was
very enlarged. Thinking man had also been a Vaunteer firefighter.
(46:00):
He said, I told him what happened and he said,
he said, you know, he said, you weren't meant to
stop the freight train, but you're And I said, he said,
you'll know what to do. And I said, I that's
the problem. I don't know what to do. And he said,
don't worry. Your heart will tell you how. And that
(46:21):
was such powerful counseling. It just gave me strength and faith, faith,
and every time I prayed to God, please help me,
I feel so low, I feel down to the ground, ground,
down to the ground. And then within minutes an answer
would come or a support of something like my sister
(46:44):
in law calling from Italy from Rome, five o'clock our time,
and she's calling to say, I don't know what made
me pick up the phone and call you right now.
This is after I'd looked at a picture of Wells
with a little boy holding his Easter eggs so proud,
big eyes, and I was in tears, like God, why
did you let anybody take this beautiful child away from me?
(47:05):
And she called and she said, I don't know what
it was that made me pick up the phone. Now
it's midnight in Rome to call you right now, she said,
but I had to call you and tell you this.
I met with a religious man and he told me
that God will miracle. She told him about Wells, and
he said God will miracle him. And that was before
(47:26):
Wells was recovered. That was in the Witten like in February,
before Wells was recovered in March.
Speaker 4 (47:34):
Gives me strength, clearly, it gives you strength to keep
doing this, Alex, How old the world did you bring
this person of my life?
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Today? Holy, Holy she's pretty special. Huh oh, thanks to
you or anybody else that's joined us. Have a quest
And by the way, Allison and everybody listened, it was
eighty degrees what to forty degrees and my sinusys have
gone nuts, heard me snifflin and everything. Well, one time
it was because I choked up because of the story.
(48:05):
But the rest of the time it is because of allergies.
And I apologize putting up a by stiffland Today, you
have something to ask Alison or anybody out there, have
any questions or thoughts or just want to say, my gosh,
what an amazing woman and your son and your family
and everything else.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
I'm just trying to keep up with Wells. That's shit.
It's all about keeping up with Wells.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
That's pretty phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
You guys, there's a hand, Yes, sir hi, I wanted
to ask what was Wells's faith life? Like his faith? Well,
we're Episcopal, raised Episcopal, and he really embraced some of
the things that surprised me. I mean he missed a
(48:53):
lot of true, he did get confirmed, but he always
had ice hockey practices early Sunday mornings, so that kind
of nipped into church time. But he loved he loved
being in church when he was there, he he loved
the Easter series of especially the washing of the feet
that we would do Thursday nights. He just loved that.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
And so I would take him to that, No surprise,
that's all about service.
Speaker 2 (49:20):
I guess, you know. Yeah, And and he would go
to the he would go to the regular you know,
Christmas in Easter. When he when he went to Boston College,
which was is a Jesuit university, he really he called
up one time he says, Mom, I don't want you
to take this the wrong way, but I'm taking a
(49:41):
class in religion. I think it was probably required at BC.
And he said, do you mind. I said, of course not.
I think that's really important. He said, well, don't worry.
They're not trying to convert me.
Speaker 1 (49:52):
He were worried about were yeah?
Speaker 2 (49:55):
I said, I said, no, I think that's wonderful that
you're learning. That's very special. So he had his spiritual
growth at Boston College was really something. It was really special.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
And Saramato Allison as men and women for others.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
That's right, that's right. And I also really think that
if if we wasn't gone to any other university or
college this probably they wouldn't have embraced what Wells did
the way Boston College has picked up on this. I
mean that they're every entering student now is given a
red bandana that they tell the Wells's story at all
the freshmen.
Speaker 1 (50:34):
They have an annual race that's everybody wears red bandana.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
Yep, the Red Bandana Run. It's the biggest fundraiser for
our charitable trust. And that was started back in two
thousand and five. Paige, my younger daughter, was still she
was a student there. She graduated in six So I
went up to visit and see that one of the
large donors at Boston College is was in Wells's class.
(51:01):
So he donated a million dollars to establish endow the
Wells Rommy Crowther directorship of the Volunteer and Service Learning Center.
I know, And so I went up to meet this
nice Dan Ponsetto, who was the great young fellow who
also teaches there, who heads it up. He laughs when
(51:23):
I call him young now, but everybody's young anyway. But
he's one of Wells's classmates. Two young women decided they
were going to run the New York City marathon to
raise money for the trust, and one of the goals
sold her mother's home baked. She worked in trading, but
(51:43):
sold her mother's chocolate chip homemade chocolate chip cookies to
raise money for Wells. To tell me she raised over
a thousand dollars with those cookies, which I thought was great. Anyway,
one of the gals introduced off she didn't run, but
mary All did run. She's still involved with us today.
And so I went up and so dance, Well what
can we do for you? I said, you don't have
to do anything. This is enough. This center is fabulous. No, no, no,
(52:05):
there's something we can do more, which is always the
Boston College attitude. By the way, there's never an obstacle,
only a challenge, and that kind of fit with my
thinking too. And he said, oh, I said, well, why
don't we see if we can put together a network
of people to go run the New York City Marathon,
which was a ridiculous suggestion, but it was all I
(52:27):
could come up with because of what Maryell did. And
he said, he said, well, why don't we just do
a run here? Okay, And that's how it started, and
it's just been it's grown from like two hundred three hundred.
The ESPN documentary came out for the tenth anniversary. Suddenly
it's up to like thirteen hundred runners in a year
(52:48):
or so. Again, nothing's a problem, just a challenge, and
Dan had to talk to the city of Boston to
work out a few things. But that's how it is,
and it's almost now almost, you know, always surround sixteen seventeen,
eighteen hundred runners every year.
Speaker 1 (53:03):
Now we'll be right back. We always talk about how
in giving, you know, obviously the people that are given
(53:29):
to are rewarded with whatever is given, but the true
rewards are from the giver for the given. Yes, that
you get so much more out of what you put
into it.
Speaker 2 (53:41):
Better to give than to receive.
Speaker 1 (53:43):
And you know, here we are twenty three now, twenty
four years, twenty four, yeah later, and you know you're
very young. Son has a legacy that's enduring and continues,
(54:05):
and you know, what a gift to the world than you.
Speaker 2 (54:11):
I hope to honor that. That's why I come out
and talk or do whatever I can. And I so
appreciate people. I want you to hear his story and
I hope they embrace it to the kids I talk
to sometimes, I say, think of Wells as an older brother,
you know, with an example that he would like to
share with you.
Speaker 1 (54:31):
I'd like to think of people as well as as
just one of those normal folks who saw an opportunity
and filled it. And if we had millions of people
with that level of idea of service, that that kind
of bottom up approach to fixing broken things. You don't
have to give your life for the World Trade Center
(54:51):
to change lives anywhere else.
Speaker 5 (54:59):
So I know you talk talked a little bit about
how faith sort of guided your grieving process. But and
this might get a little personal. Have a family member
who recently lost her son as well, and she's been
grieving for years. She hasn't been able to pick herself up.
And I look at you and I'm like, there's a
world out there where she can be. She can grow
from this, she can learn from this. What advice would
(55:20):
you give to mothers that might have lost their children
or that are grieving and really unable to see themselves
in the way that they could be.
Speaker 2 (55:28):
It's you know, everybody's different, is the thing. It's it's
the worst thing in the world to lose a child.
No question about it.
Speaker 1 (55:38):
It's unnatural. You're not supposed to your children are not
supposed to precede you in that right, So it upsets
the whole natural Yeah, it does.
Speaker 2 (55:48):
Hor it is and I so, you know, people lose
their children through health, through accidents, through other things that
go on, and a lot, I think a lot has
to do with looking at the relationship that you had
(56:09):
when they were living and embrace that. You can't fix
the loss, but you just can embrace the good, hopefully,
and hopefully she had a beautiful relationship with her child.
That's what she has to embrace the blessing of that.
(56:30):
And you know, there's there's really nothing and maybe I
just bury things. My husband wasn't able to deal with
his loss in a healthy way, but just maybe I
don't know. Support groups never worked for me. Support groups
(56:51):
didn't because I was in a different place than the
other nine to eleven families that were gathering for this,
and so so that didn't work. That wasn't my role
how I rolled, so to speak. I just I think,
just embrace the love that she had and shared with them,
(57:13):
because I really feel my experience, in several different ways
has been that they still exist I know this and
in a different plane that we can't perceive here in
this physical body, and we're not meant to necessarily not
(57:34):
meant to, really, I don't think. But but they're there
with us and I and they watch overs, they watch
over us all the time. I suppose should I share
my hard boiled egg story? Okay, I'm supposed to write
a book now, so you all can read my book
(57:55):
and learn about the hard Boiled eggs story. I'm gonna
it's I just started it. It's gonna take a while
to come out.
Speaker 1 (58:02):
R up. Thank you for coming from New York to
DC to visit.
Speaker 2 (58:09):
With me, happy to do it. Thank you for inviting me,
and thank you.
Speaker 1 (58:12):
Thank you for your inspiration. Thank you for your courage,
thank you for your toughness. Thank you for being well
to share your story. Thank you for the quick club
you've put together. But more portly, you're as mom. Thank
you forgiving the world your son.
Speaker 2 (58:29):
Thank you. It was It was an honor and a
blessing to have him in our lives. He was just
that really special person. And my daughters are too, And
I'm just I'm sad for my daughters that they couldn't
share their visions of how their adulthood would be with
their brother and cousins and the families they would build together.
(58:51):
So but they soldier on and they've found their way
and have beautiful children now too, So they got some
of their mom Well, I hope so Honor wrote a
book for her little children to learn, So that's out
there also.
Speaker 1 (59:05):
Well, it's an armyandorable folks. I think the world would
be a better place if we had millions of Welles's
and hopefully history inspires others obviously not to run into
falling down, burning buildings, but to understand you don't have
to be part of a five oh, one C three
some big gigantic in geo. That the true service and
true amazing things happen this world from the bottom up
(59:28):
when an individual sees an opportunity to need and fills
it with their passion and their discipline. Your son did that.
We can all do that in so many different ways,
and that's the power of an army and oral folks.
So thanks for sharing his story to help continue to
try to inspire that narrative.
Speaker 2 (59:48):
Well, thank you. It's a beautiful narrative and a missions
it's really perfect.
Speaker 1 (59:55):
So we appreciate that. Thank you, thank you, and thank
you for joining us this week. If Wells or Alison
Crowther has inspired you in general, or better yet, to
take action by becoming a volunteer firefighter. Hey, Ala, when
somebody has a fire and they call the fire department
(01:00:17):
and the fire department gets a bell and the fire
department comes, what does it sound like.
Speaker 3 (01:00:25):
Spulster ring the bell?
Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
Yeah, that's what it sounds like.
Speaker 3 (01:00:29):
That was really good, Villa, that was a really good
ring I met you. That was like off the cuff
coming up with that.
Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
Okay, man a train, I'm a trained professional. If you
want to become a volunteer firefighter, which Ala, you think
that's a good idea, tell them say do it? Okay?
Good or doing something heroic when the moment demands it,
or something else entirely. Please let us know, Ala, and
I really want to hear about it. You can write
(01:00:56):
me anytime at Bill at normal folks us, and I
promise I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, share
it with friends on social Islah, did you enjoy this episode?
Are you going to tell friends about it? Okay? Well,
if you can do it, they can do it, don't
you think, say it okay, good, Share it friends and
(01:01:18):
on social Subscribe to the podcast, rate and review it.
Join the army at normalfolks dot us. I just saw
Alah doing it. Consider becoming a premium member there, any
and all of these things that will help us grow
and army in normal folks. What's your name? I'm Ila,
(01:01:39):
And until next time, they're not Ila because they do
what you can. Got a girl, We'll see you next week.
Hey, everybody's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
And we continue now a part two of our conversation
with Alison Crowther right after these brief messages from our
general sponsors, and right after Allah rings the bell. All right,
(00:36):
so you have this it's an evil day, and you
believe that to be true because of your experiences in
your life, which those of us listening could choose to
hear that or not. But all you got to do is, look,
this is a very adorable woman having this conversation, and
(00:57):
it's a very real thing. So the plane hits the
building and you get a message that he's okay, and
then the second plane hits and and the thing falls down,
(01:19):
and you are absolutely convinced well S gone yeah, based
on the way well grew up, based on what Wells
was the human being. His was the phone call to
his dad to say I want to be a fireman,
his revelation in Spain and Italy that he felt like
(01:43):
his life was meant to serve other lives, and all
culminated in that two hours. Yea, yes, did tell us
about those two hours?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Well, they were I mean during the time that the
towers had lapsed in what was going on? Yeah, yeah,
my coworkers drove me home. My Honor was working up
in Mount Kissko, which was also in Westchester. Her boyfriend
then husband now drove her across. He always kept he
(02:17):
kept the car, but he kept a big tractor trailer
between going west across the tap and Zee, so Honor
wouldn't see the burning of the towers and all. He
protected her from that. He was wonderful still is, they're both.
I'm so blessed with two wonderful sons in law. Anyway,
so I got I was like numb. I didn't eat
(02:39):
for days. I mostly walked, I space, I stayed up.
I stayed up well into the night. I drank a
lot of water. That saved me. I stayed up well
into the like two and three o'clock in the morning,
because that was the only time you could really get
through to hospitals, and I can't.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
I spent two three days, and you hadn't heard from right.
Your worst fears and your premonitions of your intuition that
he was gone became very real at this point.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Well, here's what happened. Like this, I think the second
or third night into my staying up until like the
middle of the night, I got up to stretch my legs.
My laptop was down in my phone I was working
from my office space, which was in the bottom floor.
Wells's bedroom was also down there. So I got up
(03:32):
and I'm walking around the basement to sort of stretch out,
and suddenly I sensed this. All I can describe it
is a huge energy space, like an energy like shape
like that right right here, right there. And I said, oh, Wells,
(03:54):
that's you. If you can do that, I know you're okay.
And also I knew he was really gone, so I
stopped looking. I knew he was not coming back. But
that presence was powerful, and it just it just freed
(04:15):
me from trying to keep finding his living body. It
never stopped me from looking for what happened to him,
because I kept watching everything and reading everything that I
could looking for him, which is ultimately how I came
across the article in the New York Times and identified him.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
So eventually some police calm. He's identified by his fingerprons.
I can't even imagine what that conversation is for a
(04:58):
mother and a father and a family. But even so,
your question is what happened between mamam okay and his
body being in the rubble. Yeah, and then you found
out the most extraordinary thing and how extraordinary your son is.
(05:20):
And look, this is an army of normal folks. We
highlight stories of normal people who do extraordinary things. So far,
we've heard a a human interest story about you and
(05:42):
your son and your family, which is heartwarming and gut wrenching.
But we're about to get to the meat of just
how extraordinary your son is. But explain to us how
you found him quote found him, and what you learned,
(06:06):
and and tying it back to that faithful Sunday warning
where your husband gave him a handkerchief.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
I will I was, as I said before, I spent
a lot of time reading anything I could, watching any programs,
trying to catch a glimpse of him. Something kept driving
me that if I kept looking, someday i'd find him.
Just I wouldn't stop. Now, it's probably just a mother's
(06:38):
instinct to do that anyway, but but that was me.
So time goes on. We hadn't heard anything or learned
anything at all, and my husband was reading he we
got the New York Times, and he was reading this
section and he saw this headlines fighting to live as
the towers died, and he could not. My husband couldn't
(07:02):
read anything or see anything. He just was so emotionally
damaged that it just he soldiered on. But he couldn't
do the searching that I was doing.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Your husband best bodies yes, yeah, literally, best.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Body yeah yeah. So he said, here, you may want
to read this, because he knew I was always looking.
So he handed me the paper. I took it into
our bedroom and sat sat down on the bed and
started reading. And I get to this section. It was
for four New York Times reporters that put stories together
based on interviews, best on phone messages, last reports of
(07:37):
people being seen. And there was a section called nine
oh two or nine oh three in the South Tower
sky lobby. Well, the sky lobby on the seventy eighth
floor was where express elevators would go up from the
ground floor lobby to then take people who were in
the upper floors. There were another thirty floors to go
(07:57):
almost for people. So there was this big second lobby
if they called it the sky lobby. And oh, well
before that, I should say he was recovered. He was
recovered on March nineteenth of oddly I know of two
thousand and two, and he was found with Donald Burns,
(08:18):
who was instant commander with the FDNY and his men.
So when we were informed of that, I said, yes, Wells,
you know you went to the top. Good for you,
we did, and there the Medical Examiner's office with people
were saying, well, he was probably acting like a civilian usher,
in other words, holding open the doors so people could
run out, and I just knew, no, Wells was not
(08:39):
going to do that. Not well, yeah, no, that was
not well So they were found with a hearst tool.
They all clumped together. They actually were blown up against
the side of four World Trade because of the power
of the tower coming down and acting like a big
bellows and that's that's how they were ultimately found in March.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
One thing else and two with what they found him.
I've always found this remarkable. So there was twenty seven
to fifty three Ground Zero victims that day. They recovered
sixteen seventy four of the bodies, and only two hundred
ninety three were intact, including Wells, And I've always found
it remarkable that any of them were intact. If you
had this entire building collapse on you the fact that
his body was intact is insane.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Well he was. He was missing part of his jaw
and his right hand, so I know, but there's a biblical.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Reputy you could say that.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Well, I don't know. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
It just it'll apologizes.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
It's just I just try to be as factual as
I can with this. I try to be. I thank
my parents and grandparents for that. They so well. Anyway,
so back to back to that day. So actually the
call from the police officer came on the Friday first,
(10:01):
and I was with my daughter who was auditioning for
the classical ballet program at Sunny Purchase, which has a
very fine classical ballet program. And I was reading from
this woman that I mentioned to you about who talks
about the universe, and it said you speak your heart
(10:23):
to the universe, and the universe can't help but respond.
So I closed the book. This page was coming down
for lunch, and I said to myself, all right, Universe,
here we go. I wasn't sure I believed in it,
but I okay, let's try this. So I would somehow
like to be reunited with our son, so that so
(10:44):
I can because I had all this these premonitions in
these spiritual experience experiences along with what Wells did, so
that somehow we can bring our stories out into the world.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
I would imagine many people like you knew their loved
ones were lost, but they just wanted to know where
and be able to put them to rest.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Right, that's right, and.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
It's that's what you're looking for at this boy.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Oh yeah, just yeah. I mean it was horrible to
be to have nothing, really, it was horrible. Anyway, So
I closed the book, page, comes down for lunch, and
this isn't about ten minutes time, my cell phone rings.
It's my friend called my housekeeper calling to say, Alison,
(11:29):
the police are at the door, knocking at the door,
the police, they'd like to speak with you. And I'm like,
oh my god. We had a boxer and a Labrador
retriever at the time, and I thought, oh, what have
they done?
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Now?
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Did they get loose? They were, you know, gallivanting around
the neighborhood. What's happened? Oh lord? So I get on
and the policeman said, hi, missus Crowther, I'm officers so
and so are you driving? I said, no, he's I said,
why do I need to sit down or something. I
I thought this was going to be really bad. Maybe
(12:02):
they attacked somebody. I not my dogs, but hope, you know, Okay,
So I sat down and he said, your son's been
recovered from ground zero. That was ten minutes after I
spoke my heart to the universe to say, you know,
so I had to collect myself and because I didn't
(12:24):
want my daughter to know at that point, because she
had to go back and complete her auditions and dancing,
and so I soldiered up and went back and finished up.
And she went up to finish her her auditions and
a mother, another woman mother there, came over to me
(12:44):
and said, are you all right? You look pretty upset,
and I said, well, my son's just been recovered from
ground zero. And you know, she was pretty shocked to
hear that. So after Page comes down afterwards, and my
daughters are very bright and also have their sensitivities too,
I think. Anyway, so I told Page on the drive back,
(13:05):
I said, Page, you know they've recovered your brother and
she said, oh wow, And then she said what day
did they recover him? I said on Tuesday, And I
didn't even think put the date. She said, you know, mom,
that's the nineteenth of March, so yeah, they were clued
into that. So that was one part of it, but
(13:25):
we didn't know the whole story until I was reading
the Times then in the end of May. It was
a special piece that they'd done for Memorial Day weekend,
and I saw this section fighting, you know, fighting to
live as the towers died, this section of nine oh
(13:46):
three in the South Tower sky lobby. So I knew
Wells was in his office that morning, but he'd gotten
down below to work with the firefighters. That's where they
found him. So we had to have been passing through
the sky lobby at about the time the plane hit,
and I said to myself, well, if I'm ever going
to see anything about Wells, it's going to be in here.
So I started reading the section, and sure enough, there
(14:09):
were ling Young and Judy Ween, two women that were rescued,
referencing this man wearing a red one set of red
handkerchief I think the other said a red bandana, and.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
That I did not know, Oh yeah, did not know
his name completely anonymous, right, But this guy, this innocuous guy,
and a red bandana saved their loss.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, and he had he found a fire extinguisher was
putting out small fires, trying to administer aid because some
people were still alive but devastatingly injured. I'm not even
going to describe some of the injuries. And he found
Judy Ling, Judy Ween, no excuse me, Ling Young. First,
she was burned over forty percent of her body.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
She couldn't see because her her glasses were.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Filled filled with blood, but she was able to wipe
them off, so she's so and so he got her
and carried away over his shoulder down to about what
they estimate was the sixty eighth floor from the seventy
eighth floor, the sixty first floor from the seventy eighth floor,
so seventeen stories. Ling said, can I put down this
(15:15):
fire extinguisher? And Well said, yes, you'll probably be fine
because down there the lights were on, you know, things
still looked pretty good, so they were, you know, he said,
just keep going. I have to go, and he put
the woman down. He said, you have to keep going
on your own. I have to go back up and
help more people. So he turned and that's when he
had the bandana off its face, so Ling actually saw
(15:36):
him his full face. So he went back up and
that's when he found Judy Wayne and the people she
was with, and he directed them to the stairwell and
got them going down and apparently went back in to
just make sure check on anybody else. And so he eventually,
after all of that up and down, he made it
all the way down to the ground level. I mean,
(15:57):
it was just but he moved fast. He was he
was a runner. He moved fast and knew what he
was doing. So he called out, you know, there are
people you can save, There are people people, there are
people you can help. There are people you can't help.
Only help those you can help, and get up and
stand now and move with me now. So he was
it was Ling said it was his voice, the command
(16:19):
in his voice that gave her because they were afraid
the floors were going to fall out from underneath them.
So yeah, so that's how we found out.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
The thing is, you do none of this, no none,
And you read the Times and this woman is just
describing this guy with this red bandana. So as you're
recounting that story, did you say, oh, that's got to
be Oh.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, right away, I said, oh my god, wells I've
found you. That's exactly what I said, and I went
running into my husband. I said, Jeff, I've found Wells.
Look it's he's right here saving people. He's got the
red bandana. That's Wells Jeff. And my husband said, don't
to say, don't you know don't He kind of poop
pooed it. I think he I don't know what was
(17:05):
in his mind, but he just maybe maybe it was
too much for him to hope for. Maybe that was it.
So we didn't want to raise his hopes, but I was.
I said, I'm going to track these women down and
find out for sure. So the next day I called.
I couldn't find any information on finding ling, but I
was able to learn in the article that Judy Wayne
(17:26):
worked for a ON. So I called AON and they said,
oh yes. I said, I don't expect you to give
me her phone number, but I think it was my
son that saved her. So here's my phone number, and
if it is and she wants to call me, could
she please call me. So by that afternoon she called
me and she said, she said, can you send me
(17:48):
some pictures? So I sent her up that picture of
Wells with you know, his senior picture, and she said
and she moved sent that around, and because they kept
the people that survived from the South Tower, they're only
of the two hundred people estimated waiting there, they were
only eighteen that actually survived down that day. The woman, yes, yeah,
(18:13):
the woman that Wells set down. Ling said come on,
you have to come. I'm going, and the woman said,
I can't. I can't, I'm too tired, I can't move.
So she never survived, but the eighteen that did kept
like an email group chat going for months, and so
Judy sent this out to the group, and Ling's son
(18:34):
responded by saying, my mother thinks this might be the man.
Can you send us pictures? So I sent her a
picture of Wells, and then I sent her another one
that was more casual that had been taken in June,
where Wells a member of Empire, also a captain. I'm
not sure what his title was, but he was in
charge of the John D. McCain fireboat that fought the
(18:55):
fires at ground zero. Harry Wannamaker had invited Jeff and
my son onto there, onto the John D. McCain for
some sort of party or something the end of June
two thousand and one. So Wells said Hey, dad, can
you get a picture of Harry and me? And be
sure you get the world the World Trade Center towers
in the background. So my husband did, and so that's
(19:20):
the picture. I cut out the towers so they couldn't
she couldn't see that. I didn't want to sway her
in any way. And then her son said, well, my
mom thinks it's my mom thinks it's him. But here's
a couple of questions. And also I hadn't set them
sent them more casual picture yet, or if they hadn't,
he hadn't shown it to his mother. But he said,
(19:40):
was what what color was the handkerchief? I said, well,
if it was solid red, that wouldn't be wells. It
would have been a bandana with a pattern that would
have been wells. He said okay, and he said what
kind of what kind of t shirt would he be wearing?
Because he was stripped down, and that's like wells, he
would have stripped down.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
I said, well, take office.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Right, yeah, he's And it was anyway casual anyhow by them,
because that didn't start until a little bit later. The
more formal dress. And I said, well, it would be
like a crew neck, short sleeve Brooks Brothers type T shirt.
It wouldn't have been like a you know, tank top
and shed he said, yep, that's okay, that's okay. So
(20:22):
so Richard Young was her son that was handling. He
is now an EMT from all of this experience. He
had now right, he said, I wanted to show my
mom the picture and get her immediate response to seeing it.
So I took the picture and she was sitting and
I turned it and I saw her face. Yes, that
(20:46):
was him right away.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
What was that feeling.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I was overjoyed, frankly, because to me, the most horrible thing,
and it was cold, and even when we got his
body back and had him bury, I felt so cold
because I felt like I was still disconnected from him
in a way. I was so overjoyed he was gone,
(21:12):
but at least now we knew he made his choices
that day he was. To me, the greatest suffering would
have been if he was trapped and couldn't move. That
would have been a torture for him in the end.
That would have been a complete and I was so
worried that that's how it was for him. So when
I found out that he was able to do what
he did, and that was before we knew the whole story.
(21:35):
I just was overjoyed, yell, well, as you went to
the top, you went to the insitant commander of the
fire department there for the South Tower, to see what
you could do. I just was so overjoyed that he
died with his boots on. Basically, he died a man
of action.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
We'll be right back. Two hundred people in that sky
lobby eighteen survived. Twelve of those eighteen two thirds are
(22:21):
living today because of your son.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah, and maybe some of the others too, But they
haven't responded. I mean, we never tried to track anybody down.
They've kind of surfaced, some of the people doing the
research and to do the ESPN and another film that
came out interviewed and I've met more people now as
a result. I just met for the first time last
(22:45):
September another gentleman, Keating Crown, who well saved as well,
and I he never reached out or I heard stories
about him, and we didn't know for sure whether or not,
but he came up to me. We were a big dinner
fundraiser for them, an annual for the nine eleven museum,
and he's a big supporter, he and his family, and
he found me. He came up to me and he said,
(23:06):
he said, it's because of your son. I'm here today
and my children are here today. And it's just it
was very moving.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
What what goes through you? What a human being looks
at you and says, these children exist because of your son.
It is sacrificed.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
It's powerful. It's powerful, don't. I don't, it's not. It's
just a sense of the goodness of Wells. It's really
all about Wells, and I, of course I'm proud of him,
but it isn't a source of hubris is like the
(23:41):
worst thing, and it's not a source of that for me.
It's just gratitude that these beautiful people live. And maybe
some of some people have even said, we were afraid
to come tell you because we didn't know how you
would feel, whether you'd be angry with us. I'm angry. No,
I'm so happy you're alive. It's okay. That was Wells's mission,
(24:04):
that was his purpose as a firefighters, a trained firefighter,
that's your purpose to save lives.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
As in an army. Normal folks, we say all the time,
it's almost redundant and our listeners right now, most of
them will be like, probably Bill quits saying it, but
I'm going to anyway, it's my show. I'm allowed to.
Is the most amazing thing happened when the most of
(24:30):
the amazing things in the world happened when a person's
passion and disciplined intersected opportunity.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Oh absolutely, we are.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
That is you know you My concern is for your
son is that these two to two and a half
hours defined his life. But his life was defined long
before this.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Yes, it was from a very early age.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
This was just another thing we have. Is you know,
people talk about football build character. I think that's crap.
I don't think football builds character. I think football reveals character.
I think all of the preparation you do in your
life leading up to tough times tough Oh what doesn't
(25:17):
you know, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger,
And you know tough times build character. I just don't
believe that. I think all the preparation you do in
your life for when the tough time hits you, that
don't build character. You build your character up until that point,
and when the tough times hit you, that's when it
has an opportunity to reveal character. And for me, the
(25:42):
beauty of all of it is, You're split set, his
whole life building for this moment, and the result of
his passion, his discipline, and his commitment is life. When
opportunity met, he saved others. Yeah, that is a normal
(26:03):
person making an extraordinary difference in the world and they're
off spread of their Yeah, I get it's dot Hubris
and I have to I mean, I can only imagine
both the pride and the humility you feel. But in
(26:24):
his short life, what a legacy.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Well, thank you. I'm just so happy for Wells. I
just was happy for Wells that he was able to
do what he did in those final hours that because
I know he was feeling he was feeling focused, and
he was knowing he was making a difference.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
The fact that he called up and said, this is
what I want to do with my life. I don't
want to sit behind this computer and he ended up.
He didn't die at that computer. He died doing what
he wanted to do. Yeah. Do you think when he
went back up that last time he knew the rescue
(27:09):
atacud uh?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Probably? Yeah, he had to have known the risk. He's
a smart guy. But his mission was to save lives.
And I've even had some young people who were firefighters
and gone on to be paid firefighters, and you know,
regular companies say, you know, I don't know if I'd
be able to do that. But that was not Wells.
(27:34):
Wells was Wells was just different. I mean, he just
was such a courageous soul and from the time he
was time he was a little kid, he was always
leaping from the higher highest places, and you know, just
had a big heart, and you know, he cared for animals,
he cared for people. So a friend and why, okay,
(27:58):
here's my thinking. A friend of mine asked once why
does evil exist in the world? And I said, I'm
supposed to answer that. How can I answer that? And
she said you have to, Okay, So I thought about it,
and I said, well, I guess evil exists in the
(28:19):
world because if evil didn't exist, then we'd be all
here happy, jaunty, jolly, you know, like, what's the purpose
of that? And so I really fully believe that we're
here on this earth. I have deep faith in God,
and I believe in the afterlife and the whatever for
a life, if there is one.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
But I.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Think that's our purpose here in this physical form on earth,
to build our souls from wherever we start off, to
build our character, to build our souls, to look at challenges,
to look at evil, to see how we respond, and
in how we respond is how we.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Build our souls, you know, coming full circle. If somebody
had come to Wells and said, hey, Wells, think about
what you're doing right now, because what you do right
now will define what could be the rest of your life,
much like the advice Wells gave to his friend in
(29:23):
high school, and it'll probably still run up the stairs.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah, well, and maybe that did go through his mind
and he would say, did it well, he probably would say,
I feel guilty forever if I leave anybody behind. I
think that's probably maybe more what he was thinking.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
So here's the deal. The story of wells life, the
story of his death, cannot be so proud. It's profound
that it over shadows the story of his life, which
was about leadership and about caring for others, and about
(30:08):
being part of the team and about caring and so
as as all inspiring as the story of the last
three hours of your son's life is and is phenomenal,
as the discovery of that story through Jeff giving him
(30:34):
a red handkerchief which connected everything to everything, which if
you don't think there's divinity involved in it, I can't
talk to you because clearly there is. Now there's a
curriculum to honor not his death, but his life. Tell
(30:54):
me about that.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Well, thank you for asking. Yes, we're very proud of this.
Formed a charitable trust in two thousand and one when
this happened, so we because people were giving us money
like crazy. A fire department gave us like thirteen thousand
dollars from Maine, made a collection of different houses up
in Maine sent that. So what are we going to do?
(31:15):
Let's start. We started this. So ten years into doing
our charitable work, I'd been also invited to schools and
speak and we were getting a lot of letters.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
From Stades and all those other times.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Yeah, things were happening. Well Espen called because that was
Wells's buddy, Drew Gallagher from Boston College worked for ESPN,
so this was his brains child, and we're forever thankful.
He won a sports Immy as a result, which is
very nice.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
I didn't know that it deserved it. Listen, I sat
on the airplane, and the guy next to me thought
I was an idiot because I watched it crying on
the airplane like a big baby only two days ago.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Oh dear. Well, anyway, so ten years into this, we
get a call from.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
By the way, your husband is who made me cry?
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Oh yeah, because related as a father, your father.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
I mean, your husband, the love he has for his son.
There's no camera, angle or producer or director that can
make what that was. And I thought about my own
(32:30):
children and if I had lost one of my own
in this way, and I crawled inside your husband's heart
just died a little with him. It's so very real. Yeah,
(32:53):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Oh no, that's okay. No, it's important to people understand
the connection that fathers can have with each other. Anyway,
So another friend of our sons, Timothy Epstein, who is
an attorney in Chicago now, was working as an advisor
on a special project for the Fetzer Institute, which is
(33:14):
based in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The purpose of this study was
how to kind of learn more about how love and
forgiveness can work in the world. So they had sixteen
different areas of focus and Tim called and said, would
you like to. I'm inviting you to make your like
what would be your next creative step for the trust?
So I said, I know what we need. We need
(33:36):
to write some lessons, create some lessons around Wells's story
because people are teaching about Wells and it would be
nice to be able to, you know, communicate some specific
lessons and values on character along with this. So I said,
but I have to call a friend of mine. I
called Renoi Paolini, who was an educator retired in New
(34:00):
Jersey who had been invited by the Nine to eleven
Museum to write lessons and she chose about artifacts. So
she chose Wells's red bandana to write about, and that's
how we got to know her. She was just amazing
and so the FETs we put together proposals of fetsren
Institute funded us and we created the Red Bandana Project,
(34:21):
which are lessons on leadership, caring for Others, Team, the
Power of One, Forgiveness, Bridging Divides, Bridging Divides, Forgiveness, and
Carpe DM seven different lessons each in five different categories
elementary school, middle school, high school, sports teams and camps,
and youth programs. And there was a specialist in each
(34:42):
area that BRNOI and I pulled together to create these lessons.
It was such an organic, wonderful time. I was so
excited about this work and proud of it. And so
now ten years later, we've had the middle school lessons
updated and digitized, so they are you can people.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Where used well in schools.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
They're being used in schools. We're trying to get them
out more, which is part of our mission now to
spread the word because teachers that use them are finding
them to be really excellent. There's a teacher in Scarsdale
Middle School that has been teaching the forgiveness lesson for years. Now.
I go and speak to her group. I grew up there,
(35:27):
so it's going like kind of going home for me
a bit. My mother was an art teacher there too
for twenty two years. So and our local YMCA, Rock
and County YMCA has been teaching the middle school lessons.
They said they're just great. I am now in the
process of talking hopefully soon with the CEO of the
Boys and Girls Club of Los Angeles about hopefully seeing
(35:49):
how we could work together on using these So. I
think it's hard for schools because they have so much
to cover with their usual curriculum. It takes a special
teacher to engage with extra things. So, but they're now
available free for downloading on our website, crowdertrust dot org.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
So that's what I was going to say. So, if
you've got a youth group, or if you're a teacher
or whatever, you can download this curriculum for free, depending
on whatever age group it is, and teach these very
fundamental tendons, all inspired by your son.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Yeah, yes, and other stories too. They you know, they
do bring in other stories as examples of what regular
people can.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Do, for instance, forgiveness. This lesson helps students to find
forgiveness of both personal societal context while exploring how forgiveness
can positively impact individuals and communities. I read that, and
I thought, in our broken, evil, divided, polarized world, how
(37:08):
far could forgiveness go to solving so much of what
deels us?
Speaker 2 (37:13):
I think just about everything.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
CARPIDM. This lesson encourages students to analyze quotes on seizing
the day, identify personal obstacles, explore how wells crowd overcame challenges,
and create their own philosophy for overcoming obstacles. In other words,
don't be a victim, go seize the day the power
(37:38):
of wood. This lesson explores the power of wood property
students to reflect on its relevance, journal on how compassion
influenced Wells Crowler, and recognize others who made an impact.
I can't think of a cooler Your son's legacy is
(37:58):
such a short time. Are the lives of the people
saved their offspring. But also now this curriculum of tendants
of how to lead a more fulfilling and beatingful life.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Yeah, it's really powerful stuff, and I mean we're truly
blessed that we have so many people around us. Empower
an investment company. I don't know if you're familiar with it.
It's pretty big. They do retirement funds and things based
out in Colorado, but the CEO is a Boston College
alum and he is all about Wells. They were very
(38:37):
generous and financed are updating of the lessons and the
digitizing of it, and we're still working with them today.
It is powerful stuff. And when I go to speak
at school, I travel around the country now speaking at
schools quite a bit. I'm going to be in Tennessee.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
That's a great state.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Yes, I know I'm going to be in Knoxville speaking
at the web School. I'm there school, Yes, I gather
and the lacrosse coach put me there because he talked
to a friend of our sons who played with him
at West Point, and then another friend from Boston College
(39:16):
that I guess played with him in some sort of tournament. Anyway,
so I'll be the commencement speaker for their graduating seniors,
and then the next day I'm going to speak to
the rest of the school population. When I talked to them,
I like to say, I like to say, Wells was
a lot like you. You know, he was a regular kid.
He was a lot like that, maybe not quite such
(39:38):
a normal folks. He was a normal kid, had friends,
got into some mischief, but always was very apologetic for
any I mean, he only did one really crazy thing.
But anyway, I like to teach the difference, try to
help them understand the difference between despotic leadership and enlightened leadership.
To me, that's very important and what involves in enlighten
(40:00):
leadership and as these other factors caring for others, the
power of one, I say to you them, it lies
within each and every one of you. To make a
difference in this world. And it can be multiple times
throughout the day, choosing how you react to a situation
or how you deal with something. You can either make
something better or make something worse. You can make someone
(40:21):
happy or you know, somebody drops their books, stop and
help them pick them up. Or sit with a kid
that's sitting by themselves at the lunch table. Get to
know them, you know. Just do the kind thing, not
the not the cruel thing, the do the selfless thing,
not the selfish thing.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
All right, So World War time is somebody what was
the doubtless load this curricul They go.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
To crowdertrust dot org www dot crowd trust dot org
and you will see their links to the Red Bandana
Project and a bunch of history. And I will say
this one last thing, if.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
You're worrying, the water is up.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
When Wells was working at his office, he carried his
red bandana with him every He continued to care Harriot
throughout his life. The weekend before the Sunday before Tuesday,
we were down in the city having dinner with him.
We're walking across the street and Wells pulled out of
his back pocket a red bandana wrapped around his comb.
(41:15):
I said, Wells, are you still carrying that thing? You're
working on Wall Street now, I can't believe you're still
carrying nothing. And he just gave me this like catlike grin.
You know, he just loved the response. But yes, I
you know, yes I am. Apparently I learned much later
through research done by Tom Ornaldy that there was a
woman at his office. Wells always carried his red bandana,
(41:36):
put it on his office desk, and she said to
him one day, Wells, what is it with that red bandana?
Why are you carrying that red bandana all the time?
And Wells just smiled her and picked it up and
held it up and he said, with this red bandana,
I'm going to change the world.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Ud believable. Yeah, Eddie did, and he did and.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
He is doing it. And I say to young people,
I said, don't let anybody take your power away from you.
Don't do that. Know that you have the power within
you to make decisions, to make choices no matter what's
around you. It's how you respond.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
We'll be right back. We're an army. Adorable folks. Tell
us stories of normal people who do extraordinary things, whether
(42:37):
their passionate discipline meets an opportunity, and Alison, your son
taught us that lesson with his life, but more totally,
he continues to teach us the lesson through this curriculum
and through you being so willing and so selfless to
(42:57):
share what has to be so hard to share. But
I guess in a way that's kind of how wells
would have done it anyway.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Yeah, yeah, And I think I think also, you know
that I've shared this before that I have a question
answer period always when I go to talk to schools,
and some of the questions are pretty amazing. In the
last one, I was at the Belmont Hills School up
in Massachusetts speaking a couple of weeks ago, and this
(43:30):
young man stoop and said, what what did you learn
most about yourself with nine to eleven? And that would
nobody ever asked me that question before? And I said, well,
you know, there's to myself where there's the family support,
the friends support, all of that that helped make things good.
Said But I said to him, I said, what I
(43:50):
really learned that was new was about the power of
the spiritual side of what was involved in this. And
I didn't go into a lot of detail about it.
But that premonition gave me strength. It opened the door
to show me that there are and since then other
things have happened too, but to show me that that
(44:13):
there are forces that we can't touch. It's faith, it's God,
it's whatever forces are. There are reasons that things happen
in life. And it's like a big and I remember
thinking this in the beginning, it's going to be like
a big jigsaw puzzle we're putting back together. I'm still
putting the pieces back together as all this plays out.
(44:34):
With what we're doing now, it's not the story is
not over yet. The story is not over yet. There's
more to come and it's and it's powerful, and that
has given me huge strength. I remember taking remember soon
after nine to eleven, and I was in pretty much
(44:54):
a state of shock for number of days. But the Thursday, Friday,
Friday morning, I woke up thinking, you know why. I
thought for a long time, why couldn't I do anything?
Why couldn't I do something to stop, to help wells,
to get you know, to tell people to get out whatever.
And I felt very guilty. I felt guilty that I
(45:16):
wasn't able to process the premonition I had into being
able to save the people that didn't make it. And
then that Friday morning I woke up and then I realized, Oh,
it was another series of epiphanies I had about this.
This was the next one. This message was just meant
for me. It was just meant for me, and what
(45:39):
am I going to do about it? So I met,
I called my minister. I said I have to talk
to you in church and I went and sat. I said,
out of your office, we have to go into the sanctuary,
sit before the cross. So I'm you know, I'm telling
you the honest truths. And he was wonderful. He was
very enlarged. Thinking man had also been a Vaunteer firefighter.
(46:00):
He said, I told him what happened and he said,
he said, you know, he said, you weren't meant to
stop the freight train, but you're And I said, he said,
you'll know what to do. And I said, I that's
the problem. I don't know what to do. And he said,
don't worry. Your heart will tell you how. And that
(46:21):
was such powerful counseling. It just gave me strength and faith, faith,
and every time I prayed to God, please help me,
I feel so low, I feel down to the ground, ground,
down to the ground. And then within minutes an answer
would come or a support of something like my sister
(46:44):
in law calling from Italy from Rome, five o'clock our time,
and she's calling to say, I don't know what made
me pick up the phone and call you right now.
This is after I'd looked at a picture of Wells
with a little boy holding his Easter eggs so proud,
big eyes, and I was in tears, like God, why
did you let anybody take this beautiful child away from me?
(47:05):
And she called and she said, I don't know what
it was that made me pick up the phone. Now
it's midnight in Rome to call you right now, she said,
but I had to call you and tell you this.
I met with a religious man and he told me
that God will miracle. She told him about Wells, and
he said God will miracle him. And that was before
(47:26):
Wells was recovered. That was in the Witten like in February,
before Wells was recovered in March.
Speaker 4 (47:34):
Gives me strength, clearly, it gives you strength to keep
doing this, Alex, How old the world did you bring
this person of my life?
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Today? Holy, Holy she's pretty special. Huh oh, thanks to
you or anybody else that's joined us. Have a quest
And by the way, Allison and everybody listened, it was
eighty degrees what to forty degrees and my sinusys have
gone nuts, heard me snifflin and everything. Well, one time
it was because I choked up because of the story.
(48:05):
But the rest of the time it is because of allergies.
And I apologize putting up a by stiffland Today, you
have something to ask Alison or anybody out there, have
any questions or thoughts or just want to say, my gosh,
what an amazing woman and your son and your family
and everything else.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
I'm just trying to keep up with Wells. That's shit.
It's all about keeping up with Wells.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
That's pretty phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
You guys, there's a hand, Yes, sir hi, I wanted
to ask what was Wells's faith life? Like his faith? Well,
we're Episcopal, raised Episcopal, and he really embraced some of
the things that surprised me. I mean he missed a
(48:53):
lot of true, he did get confirmed, but he always
had ice hockey practices early Sunday mornings, so that kind
of nipped into church time. But he loved he loved
being in church when he was there, he he loved
the Easter series of especially the washing of the feet
that we would do Thursday nights. He just loved that.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
And so I would take him to that, No surprise,
that's all about service.
Speaker 2 (49:20):
I guess, you know. Yeah, And and he would go
to the he would go to the regular you know,
Christmas in Easter. When he when he went to Boston College,
which was is a Jesuit university, he really he called
up one time he says, Mom, I don't want you
to take this the wrong way, but I'm taking a
(49:41):
class in religion. I think it was probably required at BC.
And he said, do you mind. I said, of course not.
I think that's really important. He said, well, don't worry.
They're not trying to convert me.
Speaker 1 (49:52):
He were worried about were yeah?
Speaker 2 (49:55):
I said, I said, no, I think that's wonderful that
you're learning. That's very special. So he had his spiritual
growth at Boston College was really something. It was really special.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
And Saramato Allison as men and women for others.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
That's right, that's right. And I also really think that
if if we wasn't gone to any other university or
college this probably they wouldn't have embraced what Wells did
the way Boston College has picked up on this. I
mean that they're every entering student now is given a
red bandana that they tell the Wells's story at all
the freshmen.
Speaker 1 (50:34):
They have an annual race that's everybody wears red bandana.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
Yep, the Red Bandana Run. It's the biggest fundraiser for
our charitable trust. And that was started back in two
thousand and five. Paige, my younger daughter, was still she
was a student there. She graduated in six So I
went up to visit and see that one of the
large donors at Boston College is was in Wells's class.
(51:01):
So he donated a million dollars to establish endow the
Wells Rommy Crowther directorship of the Volunteer and Service Learning Center.
I know, And so I went up to meet this
nice Dan Ponsetto, who was the great young fellow who
also teaches there, who heads it up. He laughs when
(51:23):
I call him young now, but everybody's young anyway. But
he's one of Wells's classmates. Two young women decided they
were going to run the New York City marathon to
raise money for the trust, and one of the goals
sold her mother's home baked. She worked in trading, but
(51:43):
sold her mother's chocolate chip homemade chocolate chip cookies to
raise money for Wells. To tell me she raised over
a thousand dollars with those cookies, which I thought was great. Anyway,
one of the gals introduced off she didn't run, but
mary All did run. She's still involved with us today.
And so I went up and so dance, Well what
can we do for you? I said, you don't have
to do anything. This is enough. This center is fabulous. No, no, no,
(52:05):
there's something we can do more, which is always the
Boston College attitude. By the way, there's never an obstacle,
only a challenge, and that kind of fit with my
thinking too. And he said, oh, I said, well, why
don't we see if we can put together a network
of people to go run the New York City Marathon,
which was a ridiculous suggestion, but it was all I
(52:27):
could come up with because of what Maryell did. And
he said, he said, well, why don't we just do
a run here? Okay, And that's how it started, and
it's just been it's grown from like two hundred three hundred.
The ESPN documentary came out for the tenth anniversary. Suddenly
it's up to like thirteen hundred runners in a year
(52:48):
or so. Again, nothing's a problem, just a challenge, and
Dan had to talk to the city of Boston to
work out a few things. But that's how it is,
and it's almost now almost, you know, always surround sixteen seventeen,
eighteen hundred runners every year.
Speaker 1 (53:03):
Now we'll be right back. We always talk about how
in giving, you know, obviously the people that are given
(53:29):
to are rewarded with whatever is given, but the true
rewards are from the giver for the given. Yes, that
you get so much more out of what you put
into it.
Speaker 2 (53:41):
Better to give than to receive.
Speaker 1 (53:43):
And you know, here we are twenty three now, twenty
four years, twenty four, yeah later, and you know you're
very young. Son has a legacy that's enduring and continues,
(54:05):
and you know, what a gift to the world than you.
Speaker 2 (54:11):
I hope to honor that. That's why I come out
and talk or do whatever I can. And I so
appreciate people. I want you to hear his story and
I hope they embrace it to the kids I talk
to sometimes, I say, think of Wells as an older brother,
you know, with an example that he would like to
share with you.
Speaker 1 (54:31):
I'd like to think of people as well as as
just one of those normal folks who saw an opportunity
and filled it. And if we had millions of people
with that level of idea of service, that that kind
of bottom up approach to fixing broken things. You don't
have to give your life for the World Trade Center
(54:51):
to change lives anywhere else.
Speaker 5 (54:59):
So I know you talk talked a little bit about
how faith sort of guided your grieving process. But and
this might get a little personal. Have a family member
who recently lost her son as well, and she's been
grieving for years. She hasn't been able to pick herself up.
And I look at you and I'm like, there's a
world out there where she can be. She can grow
from this, she can learn from this. What advice would
(55:20):
you give to mothers that might have lost their children
or that are grieving and really unable to see themselves
in the way that they could be.
Speaker 2 (55:28):
It's you know, everybody's different, is the thing. It's it's
the worst thing in the world to lose a child.
No question about it.
Speaker 1 (55:38):
It's unnatural. You're not supposed to your children are not
supposed to precede you in that right, So it upsets
the whole natural Yeah, it does.
Speaker 2 (55:48):
Hor it is and I so, you know, people lose
their children through health, through accidents, through other things that
go on, and a lot, I think a lot has
to do with looking at the relationship that you had
(56:09):
when they were living and embrace that. You can't fix
the loss, but you just can embrace the good, hopefully,
and hopefully she had a beautiful relationship with her child.
That's what she has to embrace the blessing of that.
(56:30):
And you know, there's there's really nothing and maybe I
just bury things. My husband wasn't able to deal with
his loss in a healthy way, but just maybe I
don't know. Support groups never worked for me. Support groups
(56:51):
didn't because I was in a different place than the
other nine to eleven families that were gathering for this,
and so so that didn't work. That wasn't my role
how I rolled, so to speak. I just I think,
just embrace the love that she had and shared with them,
(57:13):
because I really feel my experience, in several different ways
has been that they still exist I know this and
in a different plane that we can't perceive here in
this physical body, and we're not meant to necessarily not
(57:34):
meant to, really, I don't think. But but they're there
with us and I and they watch overs, they watch
over us all the time. I suppose should I share
my hard boiled egg story? Okay, I'm supposed to write
a book now, so you all can read my book
(57:55):
and learn about the hard Boiled eggs story. I'm gonna
it's I just started it. It's gonna take a while
to come out.
Speaker 1 (58:02):
R up. Thank you for coming from New York to
DC to visit.
Speaker 2 (58:09):
With me, happy to do it. Thank you for inviting me,
and thank you.
Speaker 1 (58:12):
Thank you for your inspiration. Thank you for your courage,
thank you for your toughness. Thank you for being well
to share your story. Thank you for the quick club
you've put together. But more portly, you're as mom. Thank
you forgiving the world your son.
Speaker 2 (58:29):
Thank you. It was It was an honor and a
blessing to have him in our lives. He was just
that really special person. And my daughters are too, And
I'm just I'm sad for my daughters that they couldn't
share their visions of how their adulthood would be with
their brother and cousins and the families they would build together.
(58:51):
So but they soldier on and they've found their way
and have beautiful children now too, So they got some
of their mom Well, I hope so Honor wrote a
book for her little children to learn, So that's out
there also.
Speaker 1 (59:05):
Well, it's an armyandorable folks. I think the world would
be a better place if we had millions of Welles's
and hopefully history inspires others obviously not to run into
falling down, burning buildings, but to understand you don't have
to be part of a five oh, one C three
some big gigantic in geo. That the true service and
true amazing things happen this world from the bottom up
(59:28):
when an individual sees an opportunity to need and fills
it with their passion and their discipline. Your son did that.
We can all do that in so many different ways,
and that's the power of an army and oral folks.
So thanks for sharing his story to help continue to
try to inspire that narrative.
Speaker 2 (59:48):
Well, thank you. It's a beautiful narrative and a missions
it's really perfect.
Speaker 1 (59:55):
So we appreciate that. Thank you, thank you, and thank
you for joining us this week. If Wells or Alison
Crowther has inspired you in general, or better yet, to
take action by becoming a volunteer firefighter. Hey, Ala, when
somebody has a fire and they call the fire department
(01:00:17):
and the fire department gets a bell and the fire
department comes, what does it sound like.
Speaker 3 (01:00:25):
Spulster ring the bell?
Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
Yeah, that's what it sounds like.
Speaker 3 (01:00:29):
That was really good, Villa, that was a really good
ring I met you. That was like off the cuff
coming up with that.
Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
Okay, man a train, I'm a trained professional. If you
want to become a volunteer firefighter, which Ala, you think
that's a good idea, tell them say do it? Okay?
Good or doing something heroic when the moment demands it,
or something else entirely. Please let us know, Ala, and
I really want to hear about it. You can write
(01:00:56):
me anytime at Bill at normal folks us, and I
promise I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, share
it with friends on social Islah, did you enjoy this episode?
Are you going to tell friends about it? Okay? Well,
if you can do it, they can do it, don't
you think, say it okay, good, Share it friends and
(01:01:18):
on social Subscribe to the podcast, rate and review it.
Join the army at normalfolks dot us. I just saw
Alah doing it. Consider becoming a premium member there, any
and all of these things that will help us grow
and army in normal folks. What's your name? I'm Ila,
(01:01:39):
And until next time, they're not Ila because they do
what you can. Got a girl, We'll see you next week.
Host
Bill Courtney
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