A 9/11 LEGACY

Seventeen years ago on September 11th the world lost the energy, potential and love of 2,977 souls. The families of those killed knew of their dreams as well as their accomplishments. Untold good works and unfulfilled ambitions all also died that tragic day.

Shakespeare in Julius Caesar famously wrote, “The evil men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”

On this anniversary of that horrid day I feel both obliged and privileged to dispute the Bard’s ominous warning.

We lost my cousin Rhode Island native David Angell and his dear wife Lynn on American Airlines Flight #11. I have chronicled David’s success as a television writer and producer and Lynn’s incredible service and volunteer work at The Hillsides Center for Children in California in an earlier Providence Journal commentary. (September 11, 2013.)

After several years of failed attempts at cracking into the very difficult television industry David eventually broke through and in fact with his work on Cheers, Wings and Frasier ascended to the highest level of achievement as witnessed by his 8 Emmy Awards. Frasier became the most profitable comedy show in television history. David and Lynn reaped the benefits and in 1996 created the Angell Foundation and quietly began their amazing charitable journey. So under the radar was their philanthropy that even though David and I were peers and close first cousins who had many adventures together as he grew up in Riverside and I lived in Pawtucket, I knew nothing about the Angell Foundation until after their deaths.

Our family was last with them three days before their plane was hijacked. Frasier was still at the top of the ratings, but, David and Lynn told us that while he wasn’t retiring, he and his two partners had just structured a new schedule so that David would have to spend far less time in California. You see, David and Lynn’s real love was with New England; a condominium in Stowe, Vermont, a new home nearing completion on Cape Cod in Chatham and a town house on College Hill in Providence a city they truly cherished.

David was a proud member of the Providence College Class of 1969 and often worked closely with the school on special projects such as the Angell Blackfriars Theatre which was posthumously named after David and Lynn upon opening in 2005.

David and Lynn’s love of New England continues to be reflected in the grants awarded in their names by the ongoing Angell Foundation efforts. The Foundation focuses on assisting worthy organizations in just two regions; Southern California and New England. For the fiscal year ending this past June, nearly 17 years after their deaths, the Angell Foundation still awarded $630,000 to New England causes. This includes $175,000 to the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, $30,000 to Farm Fresh Rhode Island and $100,000 to Rhode Island School of Design’s Project Open Door which assists underserved teenagers in the state’s urban core cities. In fiscal 2017 the New England initiatives received a whopping $1,220,000 in total grants.

Every year as the calendar reaches early September a sense of loss and sadness naturally comes over David and Lynn’s extended families as well as the other nearly 3,000 families affected. Our sorrow, however, is greatly assuaged as we reflect on the fact that David and Lynn’s generous spirits live on through the great work of the Angell Foundation they quietly established so long ago.

As a counterpoint to Shakespeare’s rather dark “evil lives on…” quote I’ll end with this from his 12th Night, “Some men are born great, others achieve greatness.”
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