Barbara Keating’s family will lay her to rest Friday in Framingham, Mass., on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, bringing a long-delayed burial to a close. Her remains were identified last year, and the ceremony will take place next to her husband.
The family has spent 25 years waiting for that day. Paul Keating said, “We carved the headstone 25 years ago, but she wasn’t there, and now she will be.” He also said, “This feels like, at least to some degree, some closure.”
Paul Keating on Barbara Keating
Paul Keating described the day his mother was killed in 2001 while she was flying home to California after visiting family. “Basically everyone stopped what they were doing, we were like across the water from it, watching it,” he said. “At some point, I got a call and found out that that was my mother’s plane.” He described her as, “She was tough, funny, very smart, she was fabulous,” and said the family’s wait has stretched across decades.
Barbara Keating was 72 years old when terrorists linked to al-Qaida crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York. She had five children and 12 grandchildren, and she had retired after leading a chapter of Big Brothers Big Sisters near Boston.
World Trade Center recovery
New York officials say 2,753 people died on 9/11 in New York City, and 40% of them still have not been recovered or positively identified. Efforts continue to find roughly 1,100 victims still unaccounted for, a number that shows how much of the recovery work remains open even 25 years later.
Jason Graham called the effort a “sacred commitment” and said, “A quarter century after the day that forever changed our world, we are keeping the promise to identify those who died at the World Trade Center in 2001 and return them to their loved ones.” Paul Keating added, “It just means a lot to comb over miles and miles of city blocks of debris for every day, 60 hours a week for 24 years.”
Researchers identified one more previously unknown woman last month using increasingly sophisticated forensic DNA techniques, a reminder that identifications are still moving forward as families wait for names, remains and burial.
