It’s 20 years since Yolanda Dowling’s glorious voice fell silent but her sister, Rosaleen, says that she still speaks to her in other ways.
“I have my signs,” she says. “Lights flicker. So I expect, after we speak, the lights will go out in my house. Candles blow out, light switches go off, always on Thanksgiving, her birthday, my birthday.
“The anniversary is coming up and I listen for the birds, the cardinal and the robin. I know that sounds crazy, but my father was a wonderful bird caller.”
Their father, Christy, left Tullamore for America in 1952, eventually settling in New York, where he raised four children with his wife, Mary. He passed away last October at the age of 94, making this the first 9/11 anniversary that the family won’t share with him.
“How lucky I was that he lived so long to be with us because I don’t think I could have gotten through all of this without him. Everybody leaned on Christy. He was just such a good man and I know he’s with my sister now and he’s happy again.”
On the various landmark days over the course of a year, such as Yolanda’s birthday in July, Rosaleen would sit with her father and they’d remember her together. Invariably, she’d wonder if he still thought about her. The response never wavered.
“I think about her every minute of every day.”
A professor of music was present at the Dowlings’ local church in Rosedale, Long Island once when he heard a young Yolanda singing beautifully. He approached her parents afterwards, telling them she had a unique talent that needed to be harnessed and strongly recommended that she undergo training.
So she took formal lessons and was placed in the mezzo-soprano range, though she could scale several octaves and was comfortable as an alto, too. Her musical ability - she also played the piano, concertina and guitar - fused neatly with her Irish background.
In the summer of 1968, the entire family spent six weeks back in Tullamore. The pull of home was always there for Christy, and Mary, a New York girl of Irish and Italian heritage, was sensitive to that and the need for their children to have a connection to where their father came from.
The Dowlings were local royalty in the town, steeped in Gaelic games, athletics and music. Yolanda’s uncle, John Dowling, was the most prominent member of the family; he refereed five All-Ireland senior finals and served as president of the GAA from 1988-91.
Yolanda, the eldest, turned 13 that summer and the trip made quite the impact on her.
“It was a big impression on Yolanda to have met all of my dad’s family and to have spent so much time with them,” says Rosaleen. “She fell in love with everybody. I think if she could have moved to Ireland she would have. That’s where she learned a lot of her Irish music.
“She made a number of visits back to visit the family and she loved it. She was always so happy when she came back from Ireland.”
Irish songs formed a large part of her repertoire and, over the years, she performed at Carnegie Hall and once sang the Star Spangled Banner for a New York Mets game at Shea Stadium, as well as being part of many choirs.
Christy was a fine piper and he and Yolanda would entertain the elderly at nursing homes during her youth. In later years, the pair of them were effectively strangers to the family for the month of March given the lengthy St Patrick’s Day festivities as they performed in various Irish communities around New York.
“She took it very seriously and so did my father so they were two peas in a pod that way. It was a very deep loss, I didn’t realise until after for my father and she was gone and that music was gone.
“It was such a deep loss when she died that day that she’d never sing again, that nobody would hear her sing.”
Come September 2001, Yolanda was living in the basement of her father’s house. She cared for her mother during her battle with cancer but, sadly, she had succumbed to her illness three years earlier.
Yolanda, 46, was not married at the time and had no children but had rekindled a romance with an old friend from her childhood, Steve.
She officially finished her job as an administrative assistant with Aon Corporation on the 92nd floor of the World Trade Center’s South Tower on Friday, September 7, 2001 though decided to work on for a few extra days and tie up some loose ends.
It wasn’t expected that that would take her beyond Wednesday, September 12, which would still leave her with a few free days before taking up her new job with Pfizer, near Times Square, the following Monday. Among the reasons for her leaving was her discomfort at working high up in such a tall building.
She shared a train with Steve on the Tuesday morning, September 11 and they kissed each other goodbye at the Atlantic Avenue terminal at about 8.20am before they went their separate ways on different subways.
Yolanda was very much an early bird and was miffed that she had been late for work the morning before as her train hadn’t arrived on time. Had the same tardiness applied that Tuesday morning, it would have taken her out of harm’s way.
Over time, as the family intersected with others whose paths crossed with Yolanda’s that morning, they’ve been able to piece together her movements. Yolanda was seated at her desk at 8.46am and witnessed the hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower between the 93rd and 99th floors, roughly at the same level as the Aon offices in the South Tower, which shook from the impact.
The layout of the Trade Center was such that the conference rooms and elevators were at the centre of the building with the office space on the perimeter so that the employees, for the most part, could enjoy the view and sunlight.
Along with a number of supervisors, Yolanda ran to the inner conference rooms and alerted colleagues to evacuate immediately. Even in those extreme circumstances, the New York mentality to grind it out when it comes to work was difficult to penetrate as some, having not seen what happened, resisted calls to move as they set out on another busy day.
Others, particularly those who had witnessed the hit on the North Tower, understandably wasted no time in getting out. Yolanda focused on helping those around her, calming people, in particular a number of her colleagues that were rather frenzied.
Many survivors who made it out of the building recalled how hers was the last face they saw as they left the 92nd floor but she only made it as far as the 72nd, by which time they were told by the Port Authority that they should return to their desks, the feeling being that they could contain what was happening in the North Tower and that it was better not to have people spilling onto the streets in panic.
Shortly afterwards, at 9.03am, the South Tower was struck between floors 77 and 85 by United Airlines Flight 175.
Yolanda’s brother, Andy, worked nearby and, though he hadn’t yet arrived at work when the first plane struck, he was in the vicinity and immediately ran into his building to call for an evacuation, with those inside scarcely believing him given that news of the explosion had not yet broken on mainstream media.
It wasn’t until 4pm that he could make contact with his family to inform them that he was safe having queued for a phone booth for four hours. Then they waited for a call from Yolanda. And waited. They were already fearing the worst.
Yolanda’s boyfriend had made it out of the city and back to her house at around 11am to tell Christy there was a high probability that, unlike the previous day, she had made it to work on time and, therefore, would likely have been in danger.
“I think at midnight that night it was a very quiet, calm, eerie feeling,” recalls Rosaleen, as they reluctantly concluded that the call they so desperately wanted was not going to come.
The following Monday, Aon organised a gathering for employees and their families. Christy was like a magnet to Yolanda’s colleagues.
“They all recognised Christy with his bagpipes because Yolanda had pictures of all of her family around her desk, everybody knew about us.
“She loved her family and she shared that with everybody and dozens of people came up to Dad and he’d send them over to me and they told us of how she saved people and that Yolanda was one of the last people that they saw before they got out of the towers.
“That last moment of leaving the 92nd floor was Yolanda’s face and her voice telling them to stay calm and move orderly and walk down the staircase or take the elevator. People were hysterical and she was calming everybody down.
“I was really proud of Yolanda. My father was very proud of what she did to help people and he wanted people to know that, that his daughter just didn’t sit and give up or run away. She stopped and helped other people.”
She almost certainly did so to her own cost. There were some 1,100 Aon employees in the South Tower, many of them above her on the 99th and 100th floors. She was one of 176 of them that perished out of 2,996 in total that died as a result of the attacks that day.
Her other brother, Chris, courageously worked in the search and recovery at Ground Zero for six months afterwards but no trace of Yolanda was found.
Like all the families affected by the events of 20 years ago, the effects are long-lasting and ongoing.
“We bore the grief in different ways and Dad told everybody to do it the way they had to do it,” says Rosaleen.
“My father and my brothers and I, we all agreed that my mom would not have survived this. A lot of parents died and brothers and sisters died after and I would say from the heartbreak.”
Tomorrow, Rosaleen will go to Ground Zero as she does every year with her husband, Bob, who has been an emotional crutch for her and the family over the past 20 years.
“It’s difficult and I definitely feel much better after. When you’re there and you participate with everyone there is a solace. It’s the least you can do, to be there and remember them. I don’t want them forgotten and to share with other families that have gone through it is very touching.”
There will be other memorial services too, including one at St Clare’s, the church where her talent was first identified all those years ago. Andy will do a reading and remember her at a tree that was planted there in her honour.
Aptly enough, it’s called the Courage Tree.
