One Long Beach resident is ensuring no one is forgotten on 9/11

Long Beach resident Barbara Horn is committed to honoring and remembering those individuals who assisted in the 9/11 rescue and recovery efforts, ensuring their acts of bravery are never forgotten.

The “Calling of The Names Ceremony” takes place each year at St. Paul’s Chapel. Regardless of what caused their death, each person who helped is remembered in the ceremony.

Horn volunteered to help out at St. Paul’s Chapel during Christmas time in 2001, in lower Manhattan. The chapel became a 24/7 respite center for the responders during the nine-month rescue recovery effort.

“I wasn’t drafted. I didn’t serve in the army. And I thought this is the way I can serve my country,” she said. “St. Paul’s Chapel was where the responders came for supplies. There were shoes and socks and jackets, toiletries, and enough for three meals a day.”

In 2016, Horn and fellow volunteer Chester Johnson attended a moving ceremony commemorating the lives lost on that day. While many ceremonies specifically honor the immediate victims of 9/11, Horn and Johnson wanted to establish a dedicated event to remember and celebrate those who courageously served in the aftermath as first responders.

“We said, you know what, if they came to help, and they’re no longer with us, we’re going to call their names,” Horn said. “So that’s our criteria for calling someone’s name at our ceremony, it is simply that they came to help sometime during the nine-month rescue and recovery effort, sometime from Sept. 12 through the end of May 2001, and they have since died.”

What sets their ceremony apart is how they honor each person. They specifically mention if someone was a firefighter, sanitation worker, police officer, and so on. This detail is important because it shows why they were there and who they stood beside during those tough times.

Horn and others involved in the service realized that calling people by their affiliation or by who they were with when they were down at the site helped give a wider public appreciation of the group.

“It’s had a wonderful benefit of giving people who are at the ceremony and people who listen to the ceremony, the appreciation of the groups too, as well as the individual,” she said.

The organizers maintain a foundational list, updated by referencing the FDNY and NYPD websites which annually record the passing of those involved in the 9/11 efforts. Additionally, Horn diligently monitors newspapers and television broadcasts to ensure all deserving individuals are honored.

Horn will attend the wakes of those who served and personally ask families if they can memorialize their loved ones.

“I say, my name is Barbara Horn, I volunteered at St. Paul’s Chapel in 2001, and in 2016, I and another St. Paul’s chapel volunteer created a ceremony to honor the responders who came to help after the attacks, and now have died. It would be our sad honor to call your loved one's name in a ceremony,” she says to the families.

She will additionally ask if they would like to come in and call their loved one’s name or if they’d like to designate someone to call the name.

Horn’s goal is to ensure that the contributions of these individuals are forever remembered, honoring their dedicated service to our country during that dark time.

Should you wish to honor a loved one or anyone you know who contributed to the post-9/11 efforts and has since died, you are encouraged to submit their name for remembrance at the ceremony. Please visit the event’s official website at www.callingofthenames.org or email director@callingofthenames.org to make your submission.