Tradition Never Graduates - Anne (Ceglio) Schaeffer ’83

Published: September 11, 2026

The morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, is indelibly marked in the minds of everyone old enough to recall that day. Where you were, what you were doing, how you learned of the tragedy that took place in New York City, Washington DC., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. 

Even today – 25 years later – these memories remain raw for Anne (Ceglio) Schaeffer ’83, who lives in New York City, less than two miles away from where the Twin Towers stood. 

“September 11 just happened to be my son’s first day of nursery school,” she shares. “Otherwise, we would have been home, watching Sesame Street, and with a clear view of the ‘Trades.’ We would have seen the planes hit.” 

Instead, Anne dropped her son off at school around 8:30 that morning, and stopped into a Starbucks on her walk home. Right away, she noticed a buzz among the patrons. “They were saying that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center,” she recalls. “At the time, I assumed it was a small plane and that it had been an accident, although no one knew exactly what was going on.” 

She tried to call her husband who was at work, but the call would not go through. So, she tried her sister, Patty Ceglio ’79, who was living and working in Yellowstone National Park at the time, and that call connected. “I asked her to turn on the TV, to see if she could see what was happening, and that’s when we realized how serious it was.”

Anne quickly returned to school to pick up her son and, as she was heading back home, noticed hordes of people walking north – their only way out of lower Manhattan. “I was still trying to reach my husband, there were nonstop sirens – police, fire engines, and ambulances – for hours and hours, heading into the city,” she recalls. “When I got home, there were 12 messages on my answering machine.” 

And then, from her apartment window, Anne watched as one of the towers fell. “I remember it was the most beautiful fall day, just a random day,” she reflects. “And everyone in those buildings was someone that someone else knew.” 

Anne’s husband eventually made it safely home from his office, and brought three coworkers with him. They sheltered in the apartment with neighbors, still trying to get updates, although phone calls would not connect. 

Anne knew several families who lost dear loved ones that day. And for years after 9/11, she would look out her apartment window and imagine the twin towers standing there. “I still feel an inner angst when I hear or see a plane flying low in Manhattan – little things like that still send shock waves through me,” she shares. 

She only recently visited the 9/11 museum for the first time last year, feeling that the events of 9/11 were still too raw, yet believing the creators of the museum told the story of what happened that day in a way that was personal and meaningful.

“Also, there is a documentary called 9/11 made by the Naudet brothers that gives a sense of the absolute chaos, madness and disparity of what happened that day. It’s still so upsetting to think about the evil of it all,” Anne says. 

“Every person should watch this documentary, or watch it again. When they say ‘never forget,’ this is what they mean.”