Sept. 11, 2001: Painful to Remember, Hard to Forget

Bernadette Whitmeyer could not relax on Sept. 11, 2002, the one-year anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

She felt uneasy. She paced the floors in her Orangestad Street home she shares with her husband Richard, a retired Newark police officer. She tried to keep busy.

"I was so unsettled," she recalled. "That day had such an impact on me. On that day I just never knew what to do with myself."

That's when the idea of a annual memorial service came to her. A service where people could come to honor those lost on that dark day.

"I decided the next year I'm going to try and do this," she said. "What's the worst that worst that could happen? I'm standing here with 10 people?"

She got more than 10 people to attend. Roughly 200 showed up at the first memorial service outside of Holiday City at Berkeley's Clubhouse 2.

And she knew she had made the right decision when a Holiday Heights husband and wife showed up. They had been unable to go into New York City for the memorial service. They needed a place to go to honor the daughter they lost in the Twin Towers.

"I gave them a place to go to do something in memory of their daughter," Whitmeyer said.

This year, the 10th anniversary, a granite monument will be unveiled next to the flagpole outside the clubhouse, on the corner of Port Royal Drive.

The cost of the monument was paid for with donations from the Holiday City bingo club. Whitmeyer credits president Charles Nielsen for the gift.

"Every year it has gotten better and better,"  she said. "Everybody does a little something special."

The memorial service will begin at 12 noon on Sept. 11. It's open to anyone who wants to attend, regardless of where they live, she said.

"We welcome anyone who wants to come," Whitmeyer said.

Mayor Jason J. Varano and other township officials will speak. The Manitou Park Fire Company, Holiday City at Berkeley First Aid Squad and other first responders will be on hand. Whitmeyer has arranged for a bagpiper to play and hopes the Central Regional High School band will attend.

The names of all 343 first responders who died in the Twin Towers attacks will be read. Rich Whitmeyer lost his good friend Tony Infante, a Port Authority inspector, that day.

The Whitmeyers were in Orlando, Florida with their son and grandchildren when the news of the terrorist attacks first broke.

"Oh, dear God," Whitmeyer thought. "This is not a movie."

They rented a van to head back to New Jersey.

"We just needed to get home," she said. "We needed the sanctuary of our homes. I wanted my kids to be around me. It was very scary."

The Holiday City at Berkeley memorial service will not interfere with the township's, which is slated for Sept. 10 at Veterans Park.