Lonny Stone left his Bellmore home each morning at 10 minutes to 7 to catch the 6:59 train into the city. That put him at his desk at Carr Futures on the 92nd floor of Tower One of the World Trade Center at 8:15, and that’s where Stone, 43, was Tuesday when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the building.
Stone’s wife, Stacey, was in the drive-through lane at a Bellmore bank when she heard of the crash on the radio. She immediately thought of her husband of 15 years and headed back home.
“I put the TV on, and I saw a scene that will be in my mind for the rest of my life,” Stacey Stone said. “The moment I heard, I knew in my soul because we were connected. I knew. I just knew.”
The couple had celebrated their anniversary Aug. 23. Instead of a card, “Lonny wrote me the most unbelievable love letter, and it was as if he was saying goodbye to me,” Stacey Stone said, sobbing. “At the end of the letter, he wrote, ‘The mortgage, the kids, the things we always take for granted are the things I’ll never ever forget. Fifteen years, Dear. It might seem like a long time, but I wouldn’t change a thing. I’m hoping for another 115 years, and hopefully, it will seem like these last 15 years. I love you like you will never know.’”
As a member of his community, Stone coached basketball, soccer and Little League. “He was the type of person, you wouldn’t say, ‘Lonny Stone, let me think, who’s Lonny Stone?’” Stacey Stone said. “You knew who Lonny was. He was a presence.”
He has two sons, Alex, 12, and Joshua, 8. Other family members include his sister, Gayle, and his parents, Evelyn and Benson Stone of Port Jefferson Station. –Jo Craven McGinty (Newsday) Project 2996
I am proud and honored to be a part of Project 2996 again this year. The emotions I had on that fateful day seem just as strong today, and I pray for peace in the lives in the families of people that perished.
