Remembering them by name
Hundreds gather to mark bombing’s 23rd anniversary
Over the years, Kyle Genzer has written letters to his mother who was killed 23 years ago in the Oklahoma City bombing.
Genzer, 37, said he likes to update his mother, Jamie Genzer, on what’s been going on in the family’s life. On Thursday, he placed a letter, photos and flowers on his mother’s chair at the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum.
“It lets people know that,” he paused to wipe tears from under his
sunglasses, “what her life could have been.”
Jamie Genzer was one of the 168 people killed in the April 19, 1995, terrorist attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.
The chairs at the outdoor memorial symbolize those who perished that day.
Kyle Genzer was 14 at the time. His mother was 32 and a loan officer for the Federal Employees Credit Union.
During Thursday’s 23rd Anniversary Remembrance Ceremony at the memorial, which was attended by hundreds, Kyle Genzer and his 14-year-old son, Brendlee, participated for the first time in reading the names of the 168 killed.
Afterward, Kyle Genzer told The Oklahoman the memories of those killed “need to live on forever.”
“It’s important to pay tribute to those people who lost their lives, and what a way to honor my mother and his grandmother,” Kyle Genzer said.
Brendlee said learning about the bombing and his grandmother is important to him. “I get to see how my family was when it happened. They tell me stories about it and they tell me stories about my grandmother when she was alive and it’s very touching,” Brendlee said.
Helena Garrett also read some of the names Thursday. A brisk breeze shot ripples across the memorial’s reflecting pool as she read her son’s name, “Tevin D’Aundrae Garrett.”
Tevin was only 16 months old when he died in the building’s day care center. A total of 19 children were killed in the blast.
“It’s difficult because you see them together on one sheet of paper and it just kind of brings it all back, that they all perished together,” Garrett said. “No matter how many times I read the names, it’s hard.”
Garrett left a stuffed blue teddy bear and a poem onTevin’schair.
Walker Brown and Graecin Walker read the name of their grandfather, David Jack Walker, during the ceremony. David Walker, 54, was the environmental specialist with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“I feel like it’s important to read every name,” said Brown, 19. “From generation to generation, I don’t want to forget. I don’t want others to forget.”
Graecin, 13, said she feels like she is part of the future, “carrying on the remembrance of the victims, the survivors.”
Their mother, Jennifer Walker, said it’s still hard to hear her father’s name but it’s “easier when my babies say it.”
“They didn’t get to know him, so they only know him through the stories that we tell and the pictures that we show,” she said. “It does mean a lot to me to hear them remember him in such a way.”
They placed a red, white and blue wreath and balloons on David Walker’s chair.
Newly elected Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt spoke during the ceremony, as well. He said he was in high school at the time of the bombing.
One goal of the memorial and museum is to educate young people about the bombing in ways to prevent future acts of violence.
Holt encouraged his and rising generations living in Oklahoma City “to carry on the lessons of April 19, and to touch lives and to make sure that all experience this place and are changed forever.”