Swissair souvenir sale 'boggles' widow's mind

Monday, January 13, 2003

The widow of a man killed in the 1998 crash of Swissair Flight 111 says the sale of souvenirs purporting to be from the

 crash site is tantamount to trampling a cemetery.

“That is the only graveyard we have,” said Lyn Romano, a New York state woman who also has a home in Hants County. Her husband, Ray, was one of 229 people who died when Swissair Flight 111 crashed into St. Margarets Bay on Sept. 2, 1998.

A small advertisement in the latest Bargain Hunter offered “sand, rock and water wrapped in ribbon and lace. From the location where Swissair plunged into the Atlantic Ocean.”

“I really didn’t expect to see something like this,” said Romano. The fourth anniversary of her husband’s funeral was Saturday, the day Lyn Romano read The Daily News story about the souvenirs.

Had to respond

“It just boggles my mind,” she said. “I had to make a response to it.”

The phone number in the advertisement has been disconnected, but not until after a Hants County man called the woman offering the souvenirs. He expressed his outrage and asked her to consider the victims’ families.

Glenn Nelson told The Daily News he considers the ad one of the crudest things he’s read.

Lyn Romano wants to thank him personally.

“I am so glad he spoke out about it,” she said. “Our loved ones deserve the dignity they were robbed of.”

Romano said Nelson’s kindness is more typical of the connection she feels with many of her Nova Scotian friends and Hants County neighbours.

Lost electricity

Romano spent Christmas at her Nova Scotia home, but lost electricity one bitterly cold night. A stranger stopped at her door to invite Romano and her family to his home because he had a generator and heat.

“We had a wood stove, so we were fine, but that is the type of connection I’ve made with so many people here,” she said. “That’s why I have to speak out against this.”

rdooley@hfxnews.ca

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