Woman honors her aunt
Christina Hall - Chronicle Staff Writer

WILLIMANTIC When Stonewalk participant Catherine Allison learned of the terror attacks that September day in 2001, she called her mother to make sure family members were accounted for and safe. I knew I didn’t have any family members in Manhattan, so I thought everyone was OK, said Allison, a Syracuse, N.Y., native and current resident of Brooklyn, N.Y. She spent the day at the University of Rochester, where she was a student, watching the news and the terrible events unfold the collapse of the World Trade Center, the crash at the Pentagon and the downed flight in Pennsylvania. She spent time consoling friends as they tracked down family members. But sadly, Allison’s security was soon rocked to its foundation. Later in the day, when she called her father’s office, a secretary told her to call him at her uncle’s home in Stoneham, Mass.

After calling her uncle, Blake Allison, she learned her aunt, Anna Allison, had been on Flight 11, which terrorists steered into 1 World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Anna Allison had been on the flight to meet a client in California. She had recently started a consulting firm called A2 Software Solutions.

Now, Catherine Allison is one of four core members of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. The group is pulling a 1,400-pound granite memorial from Boston to New York. Now on her 20th day she is one of only two Peaceful Tomorrows members making the entire 42-day trek. She maintains high spirits, despite some aches and pains.

Tuesday morning, as the group of about 12 people including members of Peaceful Tomorrows as well as the Peace Abbey, a Massachusetts-based group that created the memorial prepared to begin another leg of their journey, Allison shrugged off the physical aches, even as she popped an Advil to relieve a strained tendon. It just started bothering me, just a couple of minutes ago, she said blithely.

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On the Net: http://www.stonewalk.org/