Glessner and Shaffer, lifelong Somerset County residents, were involved in the effort from day one. Shaffer was a nurse in a Somerset County doctor’s office and a member of the local school board. Glessner, who had worked in the county planning office prior to having her family, was a local 4-H leader and active in her family’s lumberyard and hardware business.
Upon learning that the loud boom that shook her home and briefly knocked out the power that morning had been caused by a plane crash along nearby Lambertsville Road, Glessner called Shaffer at the doctor’s office.
Her husband, Terry Shaffer, was chief of the Shanksville Volunteer Fire Department. Glessner told her sister that she needed to call him at work.
“Tell Terry he needs to come home now,” Shaffer said, recounting her sister’s urgent message that seemed more like a command than a request.
By the time she reached her husband, he was already headed for the site.
Over the next 13 days, the fire hall in the town of 245 people would serve as the buzzing hub of the recovery effort. Volunteers processed food and supplies that poured in from their neighbors and from communities and businesses miles away. They began providing meals and supplies to hundreds of recovery workers and federal, state and local law enforcement — even before the Red Cross arrived.
Weeks later, visitors began arriving. They braved the bitter winter winds to visit the crash site along a lonely country road. Glessner, who had seen confused visitors wandering about, organized local residents to staff the fenced-off field and tell the story.
That group formed the nucleus of the Flight 93 Ambassadors. The group of 40 to 50 volunteers still works with the National Park Service at the memorial.
Adam Shaffer, park ranger for the Flight 93 National Memorial in Stonycreek Township, is seen June 8, 2021, at the Memorial Plaza, the final resting place of the crew and passengers of Flight 93.
Glessner later served on the…