The Lions of Lewisporte

Tri-Village Lions Club member attributes her life to the Lions

By Sarah Robinson

Twenty years ago, Shirley Brooks-Jones was flying back to the United States from a trip to Belgium when the captain made an announcement – their flight was rerouting because U.S. airspace was closing down immediately.

The date was Sept. 11, 2001, and the first plane had just flown into the World Trade Center towers.

To keep passengers calm, however, the plane’s captain, Michael Sweeney, told passengers they were landing because of a technical issue with the plane.

Brooks-Jones knew something was up the moment they began to descend toward Gander International Airport.

“When we landed, it was really strange because of the way the planes were parked – they were parked nose-to-nose,” Brooks-Jones says. “All of the planes from one airline weren’t being docked together, they were parked in the order that they arrive on the tarmac.”

The Delta flight, along with 38 other planes, landed in Gander, Newfoundland, an island off the eastern coast of Canada.

“Once we got on the ground, (Sweeney) came back on the PA system and said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for the

Shirley Brooks-Jones

ruse.’ He said, ‘Actually, the equipment is fine, but there’s a national emergency in the United States, all the borders are closed and the air space is under control of the military,’” Brooks-Jones says. “The next thing he said is, ‘A plane has hit one of the twin towers in New York,’ and that’s when my mind went back to the second World War. I’m thinking, ‘But why would the borders be closed?’ Then, he said, ‘The Pentagon has been hit, and something has happened outside of Pittsburgh.’”

For 28 hours, passengers sat in their planes on the tarmac, listening to updates from the captain as he tuned in to international radios to hear news of what was happening in New York.

Passengers on the plane didn’t know what was happening across the United States, when they might be able to return home or how to move forward. But for the

next six days, they would be welcomed with open arms to Canada. Newfoundlanders from towns and villages neighboring Gander sprang into action, opening their homes, businesses and other buildings to the rerouted passengers, who they dubbed “the plane people.”

“When we finally got off of the plane, we boarded school buses to take us to the towns,” Brooks-Jones says. “Well, we found out the bus drivers were on strike in central Newfoundland, but when they Brooks-Jones and her traveling companion took photos of their experience in Gander.

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found out what had happened, (they) walked off the picket line, … got in their buses and went to the airport. They knew they would be needed.”

Brooks-Jones remembers her driver, Moody Burt, drove her group to the town of Lewisporte. On the way, she recalls he stopped the bus for the plane people to see the moose standing on the side of the road, because most of the passengers had never seen one in person before.

When they neared their final destination where the plane people would reside for the next six days, Brooks-Jones was stunned.

“We pulled up to this building and we get down the steps and I look into the Lewisporte Lions (Club Recreation Centre) and the tears started coming,” says BrooksJones. “All my life, I have held my emotions inside. With my little brothers and sisters, I never let them see me cry because that would upset them. But I’m looking up at the Lewisporte Lions (Club) and I started to cry. My friend looked at me and she said, ‘What’s wrong?’ And I said, ‘The Lions are still taking care of me.’”

The first time the Lions came into her life, Brooks-Jones was the oldest of a nine child family in the Hocking Hills area.

“I always had very poor vision,” she says. “The school nurse called and said to my parents, ‘Shirley needs to have her eyes examined because she definitely needs glasses.’ Well, there was no money to pay for that. So, it was the school nurse that got in touch with the Lions, and then the Lions got in touch with me.”

Thanks in part to that first pair of glasses – and the Lions – Brooks-Jones was able to finish school and move to Columbus after graduating high school to pursue a career.

“If it hadn’t been for those Lions, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking with you,” she says. “Years later, 9/11, lo and behold, who was assigned to take care of me? It was the Lions.”

On the flight back to the United States from Gander, Brooks-Jones rallied her fellow passengers and began raising money for a scholarship to support the students of the Gander-Lewisporte area.

“When I came back (from Gander), the Tri-Village Lions was the first service club to invite me to come and talk with them,” Brooks-Jones says, “and they made a contribution to the scholarship and then invited me to become a member of Lions, which at that point, I had no idea that women even could be Lions.”

Brooks-Jones wholeheartedly took the invitation in early 2002 and has been an active member of the Tri-Village Lions Club ever since.

“I have often wondered why the things that have happened to me or that I’ve gotten involved with, why did they happen?” Brooks-Jones says. “Well, I really do think that there’s a plan for each one of us. We just don’t know what it is.”

Brooks-Jones and her fellow passengers exiting their plane to get on a school bus on Sept. 12, 2001.

Brooks-Jones has shared her story many times and is core inspiration for Broadway hit musical Come From Away and bestselling novel The Day the World Came to Town among others.

Sarah Robinson is an assistant editor. Feedback welcome at feedback@ cityscenemediagroup.com.

Brooks-Jones settled in Upper Arlington after graduating from high school.

“When I had just turned 21, I bought a house on Zollinger Road in Upper Arlington,” she says. “That’s where I lived until I got married. I was 11 days from 55 when I got married and my husband had just turned 59.”

Brooks-Jones and her husband, Ronald Jones, who died in 2018, are the definition of meant to be.

“His mother was my homeroom teacher and my Latin teacher in junior high school,” says BrooksJones, “and she was the most awesome woman.”

Ronald and Brooks-Jones didn’t meet until Ronald’s mother became very ill, passing away only a few months later. Brooks-Jones says she and Ronald had so much in common and, despite never having met in person, their paths had unwittingly crossed before.

“(Ronald) was an engraver and did a lot of work for Ohio State, and I got a number of awards and things when I worked (at OSU),” says Brooks-Jones. “Years later, he told me he would come home (from work) and tell his mother, ‘Well, Mother, your favorite student’s getting another award!’”

When they finally met, the couple knew they were meant to be.

“We met each other and it was just like, I can’t believe this is going on,” she says. “(His mother) died in early January. We had our first date the end of January, and he asked me to marry him in July. By early August, we got married.” 4590 Knightsbridge Blvd. Columbus, OH 43214

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