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RINGWOOD - Plaque erected to honor two natives lost on 9/11
(by Teresa Edmond - Staff Writer - September 24, 2008)
RINGWOOD - How is it that a community knew that a spot outside a public library would be ideal for erecting a 9/11 memorial in honor of two beloved victims?
Let’s say a little bird told them.
This is basically what Joyce Boland, mother of late borough resident Vincent Boland Jr., said when she recounted the story Sept. 21 at the 9/11 memorial ceremony outside the Ringwood Public Library.
It was at this ceremony that the Boland and DeSimone families mounted a plaque honoring two Ringwood natives whose lives were snatched away on that fateful day.
Christian DeSimone and Vincent Boland Jr. grew up in the borough and went to school there before attending Lakeland Regional High School (LRHS) in Wanaque. They were both working for the insurance company Marsh and McLennan when they died in Tower One of the World Trade Center during the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
According to Joyce Boland, she and her family, as well as the DeSimone family and borough officials, were outside the Ringwood Public Library last spring, thinking about how to lay out the 9/11 memorial in a small area just down the hill from a forest playground.
Suddenly, Deputy Mayor Donna Anderson saw a cardinal perched high up in a nearby tree. Since Joyce Boland had heard that cardinals represent the presence of a deceased person’s spirit, she took this cardinal as a symbol that the young men approved the spot community members were standing on.
“The birds were with us, their spirits, their energy. It’s as though they said, ‘Job well done,’” Boland said at the Sept. 21 ceremony.
The 9/11 memorial is a serpentine garden with a granite memorial stone created out of the wooded area that leads up to Ringwood’s forest playground just beyond the Ringwood Public Library. Spruce trees are planted at this site thanks to Deputy Borough Manager Scott Heck because he knew cardinals like spruce trees, Boland said.
As one of the people opening the 9/11 ceremony, Anderson commented on the rapid succession of building the memorial in only a few months’ time.
“It’s a place to mourn, a place to reflect, and a place to cherish,” she said.
The families have not only put up the memorial as a tribute but also launched foundations to support college scholarships – the Vincent M. Boland Jr. Memorial Scholarship Fund and the Christian L. DeSimone Foundation.
One by one during the ceremony, family members and friends stood up at the podium to recall their memories of Vincent and Christian, and how these two impacted the lives around them. The speakers recalled both men as bright, successful, good humored and decent.
Boland’s friend Rebecca Lubot Conk called her late friend “a great companion” whom she’d hang out with in the city, and an “honest businessman” who had accomplished a lot in his career by 25, the age Boland was when he died.
Erin Boland, Vincent’s sister, read a poem “In Loving Memory” by Diane Huggins, a woman who took time out to write a narrative poem for each 9/11 victim. Huggins gathered information from various sources including newspaper articles and the New York Times Portraits of 9/11.
Martina DeSimone remembered her frequent conversations with her brother Christian about their futures before 9/11. Since that tragedy, she and her mother started foundations in Christian’s name.
“We’re reacting to this tragedy the best we know how,” she said.
John Yost, LRHS athletic director, recalled Christian as a hardworking and tough, yet humble football player. Having coached Christian DeSimone in football, Yost observed the athlete’s admirable attitude on and off the gridiron.
“He gave everything (in football), and that’s how he lived life,” he said.
Yost said that the high school retired Christian’s football jersey, number 28, during the football season of 2001.
History of the memorial
Discussion of the Boland and DeSimone 9/11 memorial started in 2001 – the year of the terrorist attacks – but nothing got off the ground. The topic resurfaced last year when it was brought to the previous Borough Council’s attention and got a unanimous go-ahead from its members.
Once memorial plans resurfaced, borough officials helped the Boland and DeSimone families move the plans along, bringing it all to reality in six months.
Mayor Walter Davison assisted the families in picking out the memorial’s site. The library had plotted land that could be donated to the families to put up a memorial.
The memorial cost about $4,000 to erect and was funded by the municipal budget, Acting Borough Manager Kelley Rohde said previously. The Department of Public Works (DPW) did all the work on the site.
The foundations
Donations can be made to two foundations the Boland and DeSimone families established. They’re available to students of Lakeland Regional High School (LRHS) and University of Rhode Island (URI), from which Christian DeSimone graduated.
Vincent M. Boland Jr. Memorial Scholarship Fund
Lakeland Bank, 103 Ringwood Ave., Wanaque, NJ 07465
– $1,000 Scholarship is given out annually to an LRHS computer or business major
Christian L. DeSimone Foundation
73 Catherine Court, Ringwood, NJ 07456
– A $1,000 annual gift is awarded to an LRHS senior year football player who demonstrates leadership, academic, and athletic excellence.
– A $35,000 endowment that annually provides a scholarship to a URI junior or senior majoring in accounting, international business or German who demonstrates financial need.
Preference is given to a student who meets all these criteria and who is a URI football team member not already receiving a full scholarship.
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