Community remembers 9/11 victims with daffodil garden on battlefield

Community volunteers and several local garden clubs dedicated a bed of nearly 7,000 yellow daffodils at Princeton Battlefield State Park last Saturday to all victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Barbara Gallup, a member of The Garden Club of Princeton, with the group's president, Milly King, developed the original idea for the memorial last fall "We felt the need to do something, and a garden would certainly be an appropriate thing," King said. "We talked about the possibility of planting one bulb in remembrance of each victim." But at the time, King said the club was not yet sure how many people had died.

Completing the project involved the participation of more than 150 members of the community and seven area garden centers that donated supplies and funding or helped plant bulbs in October.

"It was an almost impossible task," King said. "It took all the people there to do it."

Gallup said she chose the Princeton Battlefield State Park because it would appropriately symbolize the difficult process of understanding how to live in the wake of the attacks.

"Recovery from [9/11] is a battle," she said. "It truly is a struggle."

Princeton's battlefield was also an appropriate location choice, King said, because it symbolizes freedom.

"We dedicated this to the victims of a very different battle, the preservation of freedom," she said. "[The victims'] lives stood for preserving that freedom."

Before planting at Princeton Battlefield State Park, Gallup and King needed to obtain a permit to use the field for a program not directly associated with the park's purpose.

Park director John Mills said the historic space commemorates the Battle of Princeton of 1771, in which American soldiers fought British troops in the early part of the American Revolution.

However, Mills granted permission for planting flowers near the colonnade where the soldiers were buried because, like King, he saw a connection between the soldiers and 9/11 victims' fight for freedom.

At the dedication ceremony, Sandy Maxwell, whose family donated the columns of the colonnade, played his keyboard in memory of the lives lost in the World Trade Center bombing.