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12.23.2001 00:16
'Does Osama bin Laden have our name?'
• As swift as a plane slicing through the World Trade Center, the lives of a close-knit family from western Massachusetts come unraveled.
BY W. ZACHARY MALINOWSKI
Journal Staff Writer
The phone rang just as Kathy Trant returned home with the bagels and coffee.
Her husband Danny, a bond trader, was calling from the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City.
"A plane just crashed into my building," he told her.
It was Tuesday, September 11, about 8:50 a.m.
There was urgency in his voice.
As they spoke, neither Danny nor Kathy Trant realized that their lives -- and the world -- had changed forever.
The events of September 11, and of the days to come, would cause members of the Trant family -- a large Irish-Catholic clan from New England -- to wonder if they somehow had been singled out in the worst terrorist attacks in the history of the United States.
But, on the phone that morning, Kathy Trant was just trying to make sense of her husband's words as he spoke from the 104th floor to their home on Long Island.
"What are you talking about?" she said.
"The smoke's really bad," said Danny.
His tone was out of character. Danny never panicked; he knew how to handle pressure.
"I'm going to try to get out. I've got to go! I've got to go!" he said. "I love you, Kathy! I love you and the kids more than life. Please take care of them and be there for them."
Days of music and politics
Westfield, a small mill city in western Massachusetts, not far from Springfield, was one of New England's 20th century melting pots of Irish, Italian and Polish families.
Everyone knew of the Trants.
Danny's father, Bill Trant, fought for the Army in World War II. He was wounded in the Normandy Invasion and at the Battle of the Bulge, but he made it home to Westfield, and played professional baseball in the New York Giants organization.
Then, he met Mary Catherine Fay, a student at the local state college. They married on Feb. 26, 1949.
Bill Trant worked for the post office, eventually rising to postmaster. The Trant children came quickly and frequently, nine in all: Michael, in September 1950; Kevin, in August 1951; Patricia, in April 1953; Maureen, in November 1955; Sally in March 1957; Tim, in April 1959. Danny was born in May 1961; then Matt in July 1965; Sheila, the baby, in July 1967.
The Trants crowded into a modest four-bedroom house on Woodmont Street on the city's North Side. Their neighbors included the McGraths, Fitzgeralds, O'Connors and Mahoneys.
They lived across from an elementary school and a playing field, where the children played sports and climbed the "Monkey Tree," the large apple tree that often had as many as a dozen kids perched on its branches.
The Trants were about family, church and politics.
They were parishioners at Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, a Catholic church about five blocks from their house.
Danny and his brothers served as altar boys. On Sunday mornings, they cut through the backyards to church with their black cassocks and white surplices draped over their arms.
Their mother, Mary, sang in the church choir. She brought her beautiful voice to local nursing homes and hospitals to sing traditional Irish songs.
For nearly 20 years, Bill Trant was a Westfield city councilman. He briefly served as acting mayor. Danny's uncle, Joseph Trant, also was a city councilman and police commissioner.
Bill Trant supported affirmative action, funding for public schools and upgrading playgrounds. In the evenings, the Trants' phone rang constantly. Constituents called about street lights, sidewalks and taxes.
Framed portraits of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy hung throughout the Trant house -- one above the dinner table. Bill Trant was a key player in rounding up votes for the Kennedys. Danny and his brothers and sisters were photographed with the Kennedys when they visited western Massachusetts.
On election days, after Tuesday catechism class, Danny and his brothers and sisters headed to the polls and handed out fliers for candidates. Fundraisers were at the Sons of Erin, an Irish social club.
Bill Trant was invited to the Kennedy inauguration.
Over the years, Bill Trant, a staunch Democrat, had befriended Silvio Conte, the late liberal Republican Congressman from western Massachusetts. Three of the Trant boys, Michael, Tim and Matt, went to work for Conte in Washington.
'Dan the Man'
A snowstorm brought Danny Trant and Kathy Schiaffino together in February 1987: they were stranded in a Springfield bar. She was 24 and struggling: a divorced mother with a 4-year-old daughter, tending bar at nights and taking some college courses.
During the storm, Danny loaned Kathy a U.S. Basketball League sweatshirt and pants to keep warm. He stood 6 foot 2 and weighed about 190 pounds; she was a slender 5 foot 6.
Danny was known in New England basketball circles. A deadly outside shooter, "Dan the Man" always wore number 12 on his jersey.
He was a two-time All-American at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., and was recognized as one of the best Division III basketball players in New England history. He set, and still holds, the single-game scoring record at Westfield High School -- 48 points.
The Boston Celtics drafted him in 1984, the same year that Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon and Charles Barkley were among the top selections.
When he met Kathy, Danny had just spent the past two years playing professional basketball in Ireland.
Kathy called him a few days after the snowstorm: "I've got your sweatshirt and pants."
Danny came over, but he never took back the clothes. Three months later, they married.
"He was funny. He knew how to handle himself," Kathy remembered. "And, he was gorgeous."
He sacrificed his basketball career for Kathy and her daughter, Jessica, whom he adopted. He called Kathy's ex-husband and told him that he was taking responsibility for the daughter.
"You'll never have to pay a cent again," Danny announced.
Danny used his family's political connections to land a job in the Hampden County District Attorney's office -- helping crime victims.
'What's a bond trader?'
By 1991, Kathy and Danny Trant had three children. Danny was looking for a way to better provide for his family. He considered law school. One summer day, at a tournament on Cape Cod, he bumped into an old basketball buddy who worked on Wall Street.
A few months later, the friend called and asked Trant whether he might be interested in becoming a bond trader.
"What's a bond trader?" he asked.
The Trants went to New York City for an interview. When he was invited to a Knicks basketball game at Madison Square Garden, Danny turned down the offer, saying he had to get back to baby-sit the kids.
"You're hired," the interviewer said. "We need family men like you."
During the next few years, Danny Trant learned the world of finance. He struggled at first, jumping from several brokerage houses before he was hired, in 1998, by Cantor Fitzgerald, a bond firm that occupied several top floors in the World Trade Center.
In December 2000, the Trants bought their first home: a $245,000 fixer-upper in Northport, a quaint community on the north shore of Long Island. They poured thousands of dollars into renovations.
Danny was doing well at work: he had earned about $155,000 that year, the most he ever made.
Two weeks before the terrorist attacks, Kathy went to lunch with Danny at the Windows on the World restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center. It was only the second time she had been to see her husband at work.
Danny brought Kathy by his desk. Hundreds of bond traders had phones cradled to their ears as they hustled business in a huge open room. The atmosphere was loud and raucous.
Danny liked the camaradarie of working with the brokers. Many of them were accomplished athletes who thrived in the pressured environment.
Some traders developed friendships with their clients. One client loved Danny's singing voice. Before closing a deal, he always insisted that Danny sing him a song. Danny always delivered.
The Trants loved life in Northport. Danny coached in so many youth basketball leagues that Kathy had trouble keeping track of them.
"He never complained about anything," said Kathy.
Young Daniel, who loves basketball, went everywhere with his father. Alex and Jessica love soccer; she plays at Pace University, outside New York City.
Danny Trant liked working at Cantor Fitzgerald, but he wasn't crazy about having his office near the top of the tallest skyscraper in New York City. He was in the elevator one day when it dropped 40 floors.
No one was hurt, but the episode rattled him.
Attack on the Pentagon
Danny climbed into bed on the night of Sept. 10.
"I couldn't be happier," he told his wife. "Our life is perfect."
Danny had just spent several hours at Yankee Stadium with their two sons, Daniel, 12, and Alex, 10. Danny's best friend from college had joined them. They had hoped to see their beloved Red Sox beat the Yankees.
Heavy rains canceled the game, but the four had a good time. Young Daniel had even joked that he enjoyed bonding with the guys.
The alarm clock rang at 4:15 a.m.
Just like every other weekday, Danny Trant kissed his wife, rose from bed and showered. He quietly left the house and drove to nearby Huntington to catch the 5:20 a.m. train to New York City.
He rode the elevator to the 104th floor of the World Trade Center, the North Tower, and was at his desk trading bonds by 7 a.m.
He called home at 7:15 a.m., as he did every day, to make sure that Kathy was up and getting the boys ready for school.
His final phone call came at 8:50 a.m., five minutes after the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center.
Kathy ran to the living room and turned on the television. Plumes of black smoke rose from the North Tower, the same tower she had visited two weeks earlier.
She turned off the television; she couldn't bear to watch.
Tim Trant was watching television from his office in the Pentagon Annex in Arlington, Va., when the first tower was attacked. He called Kathy in Long Island. She said that she had just spoken to Danny -- he was in the building.
While they talked, at 9:03 a.m., Tim Trant watched a second plane crash into the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
"I realized it was no accident," he said. "The towers had been attacked."
Tim, who works as a legislative adviser for the Navy, called his brother Matt in Washington, D.C.
They wondered if their parents, who had retired to Florida, even knew that Danny worked in the World Trade Center.
It was decided that Tim Trant would call their parents. He began dialing their home at 9:41 a.m.
Suddenly, the roar of a low-flying plane passed overhead.
Tim Trant was accustomed to military jets screaming outside his office to honor war veterans in Arlington Cemetery, but he had never heard anything like this.
The roar was followed by a thundering explosion.
Tim Trant thought that his building, the Pentagon Annex, had been hit.
Outside his window, less than a half-mile away, black smoke billowed from the Pentagon. He ran down the hallway toward the office of his boss, Rear Adm. Norb Ryan.
The hallway was crowded with panicked military and civilian personnel.
"What's going on?," they yelled. "What's going on?"
Tim Trant ran back to his office and called Matt.
"The Pentagon has been hit!," Tim shouted. "We're evacuating."
The North Tower falls
Matt Trant works at a private government relations firm about three blocks from the White House.
He knew that Danny worked in one of the World Trade Center towers -- "the one with the antenna." He was watching television when the North Tower was hit, and he immediately tried to get through to Kathy. The line was busy.
After the Pentagon attack, the alarms sounded in Matt's building and everyone was ordered out.
Matt refused to leave.
He told his boss that he was awaiting word on his brother, who was in the World Trade Center.
Matt stayed in his fourth-floor office with a colleague and watched in horror as the events unfolded.
From his window, which overlooks the Treasury Department, Matt could see armed guards posted on street corners in Washington, D.C. Secret Service agents stood in the middle of intersections. Military vehicles rumbled down 13th Street.
At 10:29 a.m., Matt got through to Kathy.
As they talked, he watched the North Tower of the World Trade Center collapse. He told her that Danny could not have made it out.
Kathy refused to believe him.
Where's Sheila?
Within 90 minutes, more than 50 family members and friends had gathered in the Trant house in Northport.
The phone rang constantly. Each time, Kathy answered, "Danny! Danny!"
Meanwhile, broadcasts were reporting that terrorists had hijacked two American Airlines planes for the attacks.
The Trants' youngest sister, Sheila, was a flight attendant for American Airlines in Chicago.
Was she on either flight?
After a series of frantic calls, the family learned that she was home, recovering from a recent car accident.
By early evening, Kathy Trant was ill. She was brought to Huntington Hospital, where she was admitted and given medication to calm her nerves.
She awoke the next morning to find her father at her bedside.
"Did Danny call?" she asked.
No trace of Danny
A few hours later, Kathy Trant, her family and friends went to New York City. They broke into three groups and fanned out across lower Manhattan. They posted fliers with photographs of Danny and they dropped by local hospitals to see whether he had been admitted.
There was no trace of Danny Trant.
That night, the Trants went to the Pierre Hotel in Manhattan. Howard Lutnick, the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, spoke to the families of those who had worked for his financial firm.
"Not one person made it out of Cantor," he said from a microphone.
For Kathy that made it final. Her husband, the love of her life, was never coming home.
Kathy Trant moved quickly with the funeral arrangements. Family and friends had arrived in Northport from across the country. She figured that she may as well have the services while everyone was still around.
On Sept. 17, a memorial service was held for Danny at the Nolan Taylor Funeral Home in Northport. About 1,200 people showed up to pay their respects. Over the years, Danny had coached basketball and soccer for hundreds of boys and girls. It seemed like all of them were there. The funeral home set up a tent to handle the crowd.
The terror continues
Within weeks of the funeral, the second wave of the terror attacks -- anthrax poisoning -- sent fear through the Postal Service. In mid-October, two postal workers in northeast Washington were exposed to anthrax. They both died a few days later.
Two of Danny's sisters, Pat and Sally, are career postal workers.
Pat is a letter carrier in Westfield; Sally is a sales analyst in a processing center for priority mail near Dulles Airport in northern Virginia.
Rumors were rampant at Sally Trant's postal facility. There was talk that mail was shipped from the District of Columbia post office and stored in her building.
Workers were tested for anthrax exposure, others were taking Cipro, an antibiotic designed to ward off the fatal disease.
The Trants' mother, Mary, called one day during the anthrax scare.
"Does Osama bin Laden have our name?" she wondered.
Matt Trant wasn't taking any chances. At their house in Maryland, he and his wife, Gina, wore latex gloves and collected the mail each day. It was stored in garbage bags left unopened in the backyard for a month.
Serious questions were being raised about the security at Logan International Airport where the hijackers, armed with box cutters, had boarded two of the planes.
For about two years, ending in September 1999, Matt Trant was deputy executive director for the Massachusetts Port Authority, the transportation agency responsible for airport security at Logan.
Thank God he no longer worked there, Matt thought.
Living by example
In October, Sheila, the American Airlines flight attendant, resumed flying, much to the dismay of her older brother, Tim.
"I support whatever decision you reach, but I've got to tell you, I would love it if you decided not to go back," he wrote in an e-mail. "There's lots of options out there. I love you dearly!"
Sheila e-mailed him back, saying that she must continue to live her life. She felt it was something that Danny would have wanted her to do. Flying was a risk she was willing to take even though she has a husband and two preschool children.
"I really feel that I need to continue to set the example for my children that I can work, be a good mother, supportive loving wife, and have a career," Sheila wrote. "We have a motto in our family, 'We will always come back to you.' "
When Sheila and her family had returned to Westfield for a memorial service for Danny, she ran into her best friend from childhood.
Her friend's kid sister, Tara Shea Creamer, was a passenger on the flight that exploded into Danny's tower in the World Trade Center. She left a husband and two small children.
"What could we say to each other?" Sheila said. "We just cried."
Fighting the urge to quit
Kathy Trant's tears flow easily these days. She sits at the kitchen table of her house in Northport writing thank-you notes until her right arm gets numb. So far, she has sent more than 700.
The days since Sept. 11 have been hell.
"At first I wanted to die," she said. "I just wanted to go with Danny. But I knew he would want me to be strong and take care of the children. Sometimes I wished I didn't love him so much. It would make it easier."
Kathy and the children are in counseling. Since Sept. 11, the boys and their mother have slept in the same bed.
For a while, young Daniel talked about quitting basketball -- it just wasn't the same without Dad.
But he has stuck with it. A few weeks back, he hit a couple of key three-point shots in an AAU game.
Looking to the future
The outpouring of generosity has been overwhelming. There have been fundraisers in Westfield and Washington, D.C., where Danny's brother Kevin, an Irish folksinger, raised money with his musician friends. Sheila collected about $10,000 in Park Ridge, Ill., where she lives outside Chicago.
Northport raised $20,000 for the Trants and five other families who lost loved ones in the terror attacks.
New York Knicks Coach Jeff Van Gundy, who played basketball against Danny in college, invited young Daniel to serve as the team's ballboy one night in Madison Square Garden.
Two weeks ago, Van Gundy stepped down as head coach. His college roommate had been among the 3,000 people killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center.
Kathy Trant worries about the future. About $114,000 has been donated to her children's college fund, and she said people have sent her another $60,000. Still, she hasn't worked in 15 years and she has a house mortgage and three kids to support.
Her family is going through the maze of paperwork and legal channels to find out what benefits are available to Kathy and the children. After all, Danny was murdered; it says so on his death certificate.
Kathy finds herself obsessed with the news coverage of the war in Afghanistan. She is pleased to see life is better for women who were repressed by the Islamic extremists.
She scoffs at Osama bin Laden and his followers' holy war on the West.
"They killed the most loving, kindest human being," she said. "I lost my love, my best friend and my soulmate. For what?"
Still, she has to live her life, now without Danny.
"He knew what to do in every situation," she said sobbing. "I want to be like him. That's what I want to be like."
Faith and fury
Matt, Sheila, Sally and Tim have tried to live with Danny's death through their faith in God. Devout Catholics, they like to believe that things happen for a reason.
"As bad as this seems, we have a very, very close family and strong family," said Sally Trant. "There are people who have no one. I miss Danny terribly, but there must be something terribly important that he is needed for."
Despite his faith, Tim is not completely willing to forgive those responsible for his brother's death.
In his office at the Pentagon Annex, a crucifix hangs on the wall.
But on his desk, he keeps a photograph of a missile that his Navy buddies fired into Afghanistan from the USS Enterprise, an aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea.
They wanted Tim to know their thoughts were with Danny, who wore number 12 on his basketball jersey at Westfield High, Clark University and as a professional in Ireland. Painted on the side of one 2,000-pound bomb was a message:
To: Osama
From: Dan the Man, #12.
Donations to the Trant family can be sent to Dan Trant's Children's Education Fund, c/o Fleet Bank, 680 Fort Salonga Road, Northport, New York 11768
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