Riverhead community remembers the fallen heroes of Sept. 11

The Reeves Park community held its 10th annual candlelight walk and remembrance ceremony last night at the Sept. 11 Memorial Park on Sound Avenue.

The tight-knit beachfront community lost two young firefighters in the World Trade Center terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001: Lt. Thomas Kelly, 38, a member of FDNY Ladder Co. 105 in Brooklyn, and Jonathan Ielpi, 29, a member of FDNY Squad 288 in Queens.

Kelly and Ielpi perished in the collapse of the South Tower, after they rushed into the burning skyscraper in a valiant effort to save people trapped inside.

Kelly’s entire company was killed in the mission. Ielpi was one of eight men in Squad 288 who died that day. In all, 343 FDNY firefighters were killed on Sept. 11, 2001.

Each year, the Riverhead Fire Department turns out in force to honor their fallen brethren, leading the candlelight march down Park Road/Thomas Kelly Road to the park on the corner of Sound Avenue. Riverhead Police, Boy Scout troops and local elected officials joined Reeves Park residents and members of the broader community for Wednesday evening’s ceremonies.

Family members of the community’s two fallen firefighters were present. Two of them spoke on behalf of their families.

Ann Marie Ielpi-Holleran shared memories of her brother’s life before that fateful day, when, she said, “we were handed a new normal.” She said she often thinks about the things Jonathan missed — births, family celebrations, watching his two young sons grow up.

“Not a day goes by that I don’t think of him,” Ielpi-Holleran said before reading a poem called, “I heard your voice in the wind today” about grieving the loss of a loved one.

Bob Kelly remembered his brother Tommy and said he feels his presence every day. He pointed out two saplings his family recently received that were cultivated from the World Trade Center “survivor tree,” a Callery pear tree that stood in the plaza of the World Trade Center.

Severely damaged when the towers collapsed, the tree was recovered in October 2001 and, seen as something of a miracle, was taken into the care and custody of the New York City Parks and Recreation Department. The parks department rehabilitated it and returned “the survivor tree” to the World Trade Center site where it is planted at the 9-11 Memorial.

Students at a Queens high school with a well-established agricultural program working with a Stamford, Connecticut-based tree company, have produced seedlings from the original “survivor.” The seedlings have been distributed to fire departments and police departments across the country and around the world, according to the 9-11 Memorial website.

Kelly said the saplings would be permanently planted in the memorial park. The pear tree, a hardy species popular in urban landscapes, grows to a height of 16 to 26 feet and produces beautiful white flowers in springtime.

“They will be a great addition to this beautiful park,” Kelly said, extending thanks to the Town of Riverhead buildings and grounds crew for maintenance and upkeep.

The park was designed, built and is maintained by Riverhead Town employees; it was dedicated in 2013. The four-acre site was once slated for development with a retail center. Reeves Park residents fought the development plan and lobbied town and county officials to purchase the property for a memorial park.

Park Road, which runs from Sound Avenue north to a town beach, had already been named in memory of Lt. Thomas Kelly and the community had already erected a memorial to Kelly and other fallen firefighters at the corner of Sound Avenue and Park Road/Lt.Thomas Kelly Road. The community began holding memorial services at the roadside memorial in 2010.

The Rev. Piotr Narkiewicz of St. Isidore Church in Riverhead offered prayers and told the crowd gathered in the park last night, “While it’s important to remember Sept. 11, it’s also important to remember Sept. 12, when people came together in unity and hope.”

The priest invoked the words of St. John Paul II, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church at the time of the attacks. In his general audience address the following day, the pope called Sept. 11, 2001 “a dark day in the history of humanity, a terrible affront to human dignity,” Narkiewicz said.

“How is it possible to commit acts of such savage cruelty? The human heart has depths from which schemes of unheard-of ferocity sometimes emerge, capable of destroying in a moment the normal daily life of a people,” the pope said in his Sept. 12, 2001 address.

“But faith comes to our aid at these times when words seem to fail… Even if the forces of darkness appear to prevail, those who believe in God know that evil and death do not have the final say.”

RiverheadLOCAL photos by Denise Civiletti