The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland

by Jim DeFede

Not wanting to wake his wife, he quietly showered in the hallway bathroom and decided to sleep in their guest bedroom. The room was dark as he dropped his towel and climbed into bed, wearing nothing more than wet hair and a weary expression on his face. And that’s when he realized he wasn’t alone. He was in bed with a seventy-year-old woman from Fort Worth, Texas, whom Vey’s wife, Patsy, had befriended at one of the shelters and decided to take home. Remarkably, the woman was still asleep. Vey gingerly stood up, covered himself with his towel, and retreated to his own bedroom. “We’ve got company, I see,” he told his wife when they both awoke the next morning. “Yes,” she said, “that’s a lovely lady from one of the flights.” She told her husband she couldn’t stand the thought of this old woman spending a night sleeping on the floor of a classroom at Gander Academy. So she’d brought her home and tried to show her a good time. Well, he said with a laugh, he almost showed her more than that.