![]() "A lot of days, he'd come in when we'd be eating lunch, just to see the boys," she says. Langone says Todd would make an effort to spend time with the boys during the day. This summer, Becky Langone watched the Beamer children-David, 3, and Andrew 1-for several hours a week so Lisa could run errands. Beamer, a 1991 graduate of Wheaton, left a message of encouragement on Mumau's answering machine from the airport just before he boarded Flight 93.Ĭaterson and Mumau both cited Beamer's quick mind and ability to absorb information and summarize it rapidly. "His heart's calling was 'First to my God, then to my family.'"īrian Mumau, another member of the Beamers' small group, recalled that Beamer carried two cell phones and was always talking to people, catching up with them and remembering their prayer requests. "He was a Promise Keeper before there were Promise Keepers," Caterson says. While enjoying success as a sales account manager at Oracle Corporation, Beamer scheduled his business trips so he could be home on Sundays. They were comforted that their friend said the prayer as he faced his final moments. Beamer introduced Caterson to his wife and helped organize and fund the limousine and hotel stay for the couple's honeymoon.Ĭaterson and another minister had recently preached a series of sermons on each line of the Lord's Prayer. "Both of them are rock steady in the faith and grounded in the Word."Ĭaterson says Beamer spoke constantly of his family, and encouraged him to take special care of his own. "He's one of the few people that I just look up to," Caterson says. They both have been youth sponsors, Todd Beamer taught a high school Sunday school class, and Lisa Beamer is on the church's governing board.Ĭaterson, a member of a tight-knit small group that included the Beamers, says Todd Beamer was one of his best friends. The Beamers, who met as students at Wheaton College in Illinois, have been members of Princeton Alliance for about six years, says John Edgar Caterson, senior associate pastor. Lisa Beamer says faith and family were always her husband's priorities. Lisa Beamer, also 32, is expecting the couple's third child in January. … to overcome the worst adversity I could ever imagine," Beamer's wife, Lisa, told Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America. "To the world they were ordinary they figured out how to do extraordinary things. ![]() On board Beamer called a GTE Airfone operator about the hijacking, recited the Lord's Prayer, and said, "Let's roll." Beamer and the others, investigators believe, then somehow interfered with the terrorists' plans and kept the jet from hitting a target presumed to be in Washington. "Without question, the attack would've been much worse if it hadn't been for the courageous actions of those individuals on United 93." "What they did was to foil, I think, the attack on Washington," he said on NBC's Meet the Press. history from having an even greater impact in the nation's capital. ![]() Vice President Dick Cheney said Beamer and the others kept the worst terrorist attack in U.S. Instead, it crashed in rural Pennsylvania. The flight was the only one that did not hit a target. He told her to tell his wife, Lisa, pregnant with their third child, he loved his family.Todd Beamer will always be remembered as a national hero.īut members of Princeton Alliance Church in Plainsboro, New Jersey, say they thought of the 32-year-old father of two as a hero long before he and others on United Flight 93 confronted hijackers on the Boeing 757 on September 11. He asked her to recite The Lord's Prayer with him. Todd Beamer, strong, competitive, athletic, traveling on business to San Francisco, told Jefferson of the plan to rush the cockpit. Here was an "independent ear witness" recalling the final moments of his life, giving the Beamers some answers that have eluded so many other 9/11 families, affirming what they already knew about their loved one. During that race across the country, he learned of the in-flight call between his son and GTE Airfone supervisor Lisa Jefferson. Then in California, David Beamer drove coast to coast - airlines were grounded - to a New Jersey church for the memorial service for his 32-year-old son. ![]() ![]() Still, the passengers continued their assault.Īt 10:03 a.m., the plane hurtled, almost upside-down, into a field in western Pennsylvania at 580 mph, killing all 33 passengers and seven crew members on board and leaving a crater of scorched earth some 20 minutes of flying time from its presumed target in Washington. A cockpit voice recorder captured the sounds of fighting, shouting, breaking glass and plates. ![]()
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