Paying tribute to the fallen: Memorial, expo mark sixth anniversary of September 11 attacks

Rick Charmoli | Cadillac News The 9/11 memorial in front of Diane HoraÕs home in Cadillac is her way of remembering the people who died on Sept. 11 six years ago. The memorial consists of bricks, paper and other debris as well as an angel wearing a fire helmet and represents Ground Zero of the World Trade Center. Each year she adds things to the memorial.

CADILLAC — The past five years Diane Hora has been trying to get people to remember what happened on Sept. 11.

Coming from a military family and having three sons currently in the armed services, she wanted to pay tribute to the men and women in civil service.

She has done that the past five years by putting up a memorial to depict the scene at Ground Zero. The memorial consists of brick, broken glass, paper, a fire hose, an angel statue and even a smoke machine.

The sole purpose of the memorial is to get people, regardless of how busy their day is or how removed they may think they are from the Middle East region, the war or even Ground Zero, to remember what happened. This year, however, Hora use this annual memorial as a way to inform.

While she assumed most Americans knew what happened on Sept. 11, she never once thought about children who at the time were either not born yet or too young to remember. That changed when two young neighbors came over while she was putting up the memorial Sunday.

“For me, this year is not only about remembering but informing. It never occurred to me while it’s such a turning point for our lives as Americans, that the younger ones don’t know,” she said, sitting on her porch on a rainy Monday afternoon.

“I wonder what their perception of terrorists is? It is a word used everyday but to them what does it mean?”

Hora is not the only person in Cadillac who did something to remember the events of Sept. 11.

For the past several years, law enforcement, firefighters and other agencies have held a Child Safety Expo at the Cadillac Fire Department, 200 N. Lake St.

The original purpose of the event was to give people something fun to do during the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, but it eventually evolved into the safety expo. The expo includes activities such as fire safety demonstrations, aerial bucket rides, bicycle safety, gun safety, police K-9 demonstrations, a Jaws of Life demonstration, child seat safety inspection and traffic crash simulator.

The expo begins at 4 p.m. Free food and prize drawing will be held throughout the event. To reserve a spot for the child seat check up call the United Way at 775-3753.

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Child Safety Expo