Laura Ogonowski was 16 years old on 9/11. She was pulled out of her high school classroom and told her father had been killed.
John Ogonowski was the captain of American Airlines Flight 11 — the first plane hijackers crashed into the World Trade Center.
Ogonowski was also a full-time farmer in Dracut, where he grew hay, blueberries, and peaches.
The community will come together to pay tribute to Ogonowski on Saturday, the 20th anniversary of 9/11, by honoring his love of farming and the way he used it to help others. The eldest of his three daughters, Laura Ogonowski, spoke with WBUR’s Jack Lepiarz.
Interview Highlights
On her father never being far from her thoughts:
“He is on my mind all the time, every single day. And it’s really important for me and my mom and my sisters that we keep him ever-present. We all have photos of him at our homes. We talk about him all the time. We laugh about memories that we have with him. And for us, that keeps his spirit with us. And it’s really important to us as a family that that we do that, because he was taken from us, he was stolen from us, and he had so much life to live.”
On the significance of the farming-oriented community event honoring her father:
“He was a farmer at heart. I think he loved flying planes, but in his heart and his soul, he was a farmer. He was driving tractors well before he had his driver’s license … And the events that are happening in Dracut are actually happening through our family parish, St. Francis [Parish]. Each year since the 10-year commemoration, they’ve honored my father by hosting a farm stand and a food drive to help raise money for a local food pantry … I think that there’s really no finer way to honor his memory than by engaging with local farmers and by helping those in need.
“Not only did he farm, he liked sharing farming and talking about…