Ruth Clifford McCourt made a big impression.
“She was business-like, she was very professional,” said Nancy King of Webster. “But she was bubbly. And the freckles — oh my god, the freckles.”
And the red hair and the Irish brogue.
A Cork, Ireland, native, McCourt was known as Ruth Scott in the early 1970s, when her mother, Paula Scott, moved here with her family.
Ruth was beautiful, said Candy Genazzio of Victor. “She dressed wonderfully. She had very good style sense and just very energetic.”
Ruth's brother Ron Clifford also was a high-energy person, Genazzio said.
“He was a character,” she said. “He was a lot of fun. He was very flirty, and he had a good sense of humor.”
The siblings also exuded genuine warmth.
“People just loved talking to Ruth because
she cared for people,” Genazzio said. “Everybody loved Ruth. Everybody admired her. Everybody wanted to be like her.”
Modeling brought the women together. During the late 1970s, they attended and then taught at the Barbizon School of Modeling in downtown Rochester.
Within a few years, Paula Scott, who operated a store called The Clothes Gallery on Monroe Avenue in Brighton, moved out of the area, and so did her adult children.
On Sept. 11, 2001, a series of awful coincidences would devastate the family and their Rochester friends.
'Stand out'
By then, Clifford was living in New Jersey and working as a software account manager.
On the morning of the 11th, he had a business meeting in Manhattan. Originally, it was to be held at a Marriott hotel in Midtown, but at the last minute it was moved to the Marriott World Trade Center at the base of the Twin Towers.
Clifford described the day in emotional detail for the 2021 Emmy Award-winning documentary series “9/11: One Day in America,” produced by National Geographic in collaboration with the 9/11 Memorial & Museum.
Before the meeting, Clifford spoke by phone to 44-year-old McCourt, who lived in New London, Connecticut, with her husband, David McCourt, and their 4-year-old daughter, Juliana.
Ruth told her brother, “Stand out.”
He did, but not in the way anyone could have imagined.
An explosion and confusion
At 8:46 a.m., before his meeting could start and while he sat in the hotel lobby, American Airlines Flight 11, which had originated at Boston Logan International Airport, crashed into the North Tower.
As a kerosene smell enveloped the space, Clifford got up and looked outside.
He saw a woman coming through the smoke with her hands outstretched, he told the 9/11 documentarians. “And I couldn’t figure out for the life me what was wrong with her.”
As they walked toward each other, Clifford saw that she was badly burned.
Her name was Jennieann Maffeo. She had been doused with flaming jet fuel from Flight 11 while waiting for a bus near the World Trade Center.
Clifford, then 46, brought Maffeo, 40, into the hotel lobby, sat her down, held her hand and yelled for help.
Nobody came.
“People were just running by, one after another,” he said.
Clifford stayed by her side.
'Let's say The Lord's Prayer'
Minutes passed. Fearing for her life, Maffeo said, “Sacred Heart of Jesus, save me. I don’t want to die.” Clifford asked her if she was Catholic. “She said she was,” he said. “So, I said to her, ‘Let’s say the Lord’s Prayer.’”
As they recited it together, at 9:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175, also out of Boston, hit the South Tower.
Realizing that he and Maffeo were now in imminent danger, and at the urging of a New York City firefighter, Clifford guided Maffeo across the West Side Highway where help was available.
As first responders loaded Maffeo into an ambulance, “I leaned over and said to her, ‘You’re going to make it. You’ve got to make it now,’” Clifford said.
Unthinkable, unbearable news
Having survived the catastrophe, he just wanted to go home, take a shower, collect himself. It was his daughter’s 11th birthday.
However, the horror was far from over. Hours later he would learn that his sister and niece were on Flight 175.
The news, delivered by his brother-in-law by phone, brought Clifford to his knees.
“I couldn’t believe that, you know, I was literally saying The Lord’s Prayer with this woman on the ground when my sister’s plane hit,” Clifford said in the 2021 documentary. “The most special people were killed. This was my world, never to be the same again.”
McCourt and her young daughter were going to Disneyland in California. “And the reason was her husband had been battling cancer and apparently, they got good news he was in remission,” McCourt’s old friend King recalled. “So, they were kind of celebrating that.”
McCourt’s good friend Paige Farley Hackel of Newton, Massachusetts, was headed to California with Ruth and Juliana. She was booked on Flight 175, too, but switched to Flight 11 because it was leaving earlier. The three were remembered in a single New York Times obituary that later was published in the book “9/11/01: The Collected Portraits of Grief from The New York Times.”
The hurt remains
Twenty-five years later, King, 76, still is in disbelief. “How could this happen to someone I know?” she asked.
And she remains angry that the terrorists got their flight training at U.S. aviation schools.
She thinks about what her friend must have endured.
“Ruth was a flyer,” King said. “She used to go back and forth to Ireland. All I could say to myself was she knew exactly what was happening as she was holding Juliana. She knew what was happening. She was a traveler. And to be responsible for her own little girl. It’s just a terrible terrible thought.”
Victor resident Genazzio, now in her early 80s, said despite the passage of time, the feelings of loss remain fresh. “I have all these mementos around,” she said. “I have this one little angel statue she gave me. She was a very thoughtful girl. I really miss her. And I think of her and Juliana.”
Post 9/11-losses
Jennieann Maffeo, the woman Clifford risked his life to save, spent 41 days in a burn unit at Presbyterian Hospital-Cornell Medical Center before succumbing to her injuries.
Genazzio said she was unsurprised by Clifford’s heroism. “He was that kind of guy that was very very helpful. The whole family was a very giving family.”
Clifford died suddenly in late 2023 at age 69, almost a year after his mother, Paula Scott, at age 90.
His obituary described him as “an American hero and a proud Irishman, who embodied the best qualities of both countries.”
He “was deeply committed to helping other people, often lending a hand to fix a leak in a neighbor’s kitchen or pausing a trip to pull over and help a stranger change a flat tire,” it said.
To honor the memory of his sister and niece, he was a government witness in the criminal trials of the terrorists responsible for the attacks. “He campaigned tirelessly to bring the perpetrators to justice.”
David McCourt died in 2013 at age 71 of metastatic melanoma. After 9/11, he helped found B.R.A.V.E. Juliana to teach non-violence and conflict resolution to children. He is buried in Saint Finbarr’s Cemetery in Cork, Ireland, beside Ruth and Juliana.
“Ruth was one of my best friends,” Genazzio said. “Right up to the end.”
One of the last times they spoke, Ruth told her she and David were building a vacation home.
“She said, 'As soon as it’s completed, I want you to come and see it,'” Genazzio said.
Reporter Marcia Greenwood primarily covers the grocery business and consumer-focused grocery news, as well as retail development, openings and closings. Send story tips to mgreenwo@rocheste.gannett.com. Follow her on X @MarciaGreenwood.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: At Twin Towers, heroism and loss for family with Rochester ties
