Her only brother, Doug Cherry — 38-year-old husband and father of three — died Sept. 11, 2001, in the attacks on the World Trade Center.
The Beavercreek mother of two was at home ironing her skirt, getting ready for her job as state director for then-U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine, when the news came of the first plane hitting Tower 1 of the World Trade Center.
She immediately called her sister-in-law, Sarah Cherry, in Maplewood N.J. and asked, “What building does Doug work in?”
Sarah, who hadn’t heard the news, decided to stay at home instead of leaving the house as she had planned. Shortly afterward, Doug called from his offices in Tower 2 and told her that he loved her and would see her soon. “That was such a blessing because she stayed and was able to talk to him one last time,” Schenck recalled.
She doesn’t like to dwell on the day that her brother died. She prefers to talk about the way he lived his life — and the way that his legacy continues to this day:
“That was just a snippet — one day — and he lived for 38 years. He was hilarious, funny guy, a standup comedian. That’s what we talk about as a family, not the day the Twin Towers crumbled.”
Cherry grew up in the Cincinnati suburb of Terrace Park, a “rambunctious little brother” and the youngest of Doug and Anne Cherry’s three children. “It was an idyllic childhood,” Schenck recalled. “We ate dinner around the table every night, and went to church every Sunday.” He married Sarah, his Ohio Wesleyan classmate, in 1988 and the couple had three children, ages 3, 5 and 7 at the time of his death.
“One great comfort is that on the day he died, he was so happy,” Schenck said. “He loved life, he was at the height of his career — successful, with a big house, a great marriage, a beautiful wife and three beautiful kids.”
Their mother worried about her son’s safety in light of the previous attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, but Schenck said she doesn’t think her brother gave that a second thought: “He was 38 years old. You think you are going to live forever.”
Instead, he focused on the dueling demands of career and family. The devoted Bengals fan — who was known for his orange Converse sneakers painted with black tiger stripes — sometimes squeezed in a Bengals game between business trips. He was committed to being home during the weekends with his family. “He was a fun dad who loved roughhousing and loved taking his kids out to trick-or-treat,” noted Schenck, who said that her brother was looking for a way to give back.
Meg and Drew Smith, his oldest sister and her husband, convinced him to join them on a humanitarian trip with the charity Youth With A Misson in April, 2002. “The goal is to build a small house for someone who is raising a family in a taxicab or a truck,” Schenck explained. “Doug was going to do it, but he died and he didn’t get the chance.”
Cherry’s extended family, including Schenck and daughter Sarah and son Alex, and many of his friends went on the trip in his stead and built three houses that spring. Many have come back every year, and to date 40 homes have been built in his memory.
“We’re here to help Doug finish the life he didn’t have the chance to finish,” Schenck said. “He got cheated.”
Cherry worked as a broker for AON Insurance which had offices in the 98th to 105th floors of Tower 2, the second to be attacked by terrorists. Many of his co-workers survived, and the family will never know what happened for sure. Schenck suspects he may have lingered to help other office mates: “Knowing Doug, he couldn’t have lived with himself if he survived. He would have wondered, ‘Could I have done something more to help someone else?”
The family has always been fairly certain that Cherry fled upstairs because some of his remains were eventually found — which would have been considerably less likely if he had died in one of the lower floors. That supposition was confirmed when the 911 tapes from the World Trade Center were released in April, including a conversation with two men stranded near the top of the tower. One man is heard shouting, “Where are the helicopters?” and “I have little kids!” His companion identifies himself several times as Doug Cherry.
Schenck was married at the time to former Greene County Prosecutor Bill Schenck. The couple has since divorced, but Barbara is still touched by Bill’s thoughtfulness in arranging for a bagpiper to be flown from Cincinnati to Maplewood, N.J., for her brother’s funeral. “That meant so much,” recalled Schenck. “No bagpipers could be hired in New Jersey because of all the funerals.”
Cherry’s wife Sarah has shared her husband’s ashes with his parents. “It was very kind and generous of Sarah and I’ll always be grateful,” Schenck said. “That is a great comfort to us. I feel a lot of angst for the families who never got any remains.”
Yet the gradual return of her brother’s remains, as well as the revelations from the 911 calls this spring, reveal the slow-release nature of grieving for 9/11 survivors. Most families can begin their recovery after the funeral; for these families, a phone call can make that grief fresh again. “The phone calls continued to come for a year — we found this bone or this femur,” Schenck recalled. “And now this, almost 10 years later.”
For the first few years, Alex asked his mother if he could have a different birthday.
Today, the college sophomore attends his uncle’s alma mater, Ohio Wesleyan University, wholeheartedly embracing his Uncle Doug’s legacy. “He has seen how his mom and his grandparents have survived and it helps him to embrace the fact it can be a day of great joy and great sorrow and there’s probably room for both,” Schenck said.
She now works as a partner in a business and government consulting company, CBD Advisors, with former U.S. Rep. Dave Hobson and his wife, Carolyn.
Schenck said of her family, “We miss Doug desperately every day. He was my brother. He is part of who I am.”
Still, she believes, her brother’s life provides an example of the lasting legacy of love, and of what truly matters in life. “Death is hard on families and tragic sudden death is especially hard,” Schenck reflected. “We survived because of the tools that our parents gave us as kids. The tools necessary to survive are strong family, strong faith and strong commitment to country.
“If you don’t have these three things in your life, go out and find them.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2209 or mmccarty@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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