This oral history interview features Cindy McGinty reflecting on her husband, Michael McGinty, who died in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and on the lasting impact of that day on her life.
This interview is part of an oral history project undertaken by Alex Bower-Leet in affiliation with the University of Kentucky.
My name’s Cindy McGinty. I am 68 years old. I lost my husband, Michael McGinty, in the World Trade Center on 9/11, so I am a widow. I have been for the last, going on 25 years. I never remarried. Right now I live in Bloomfield, Connecticut, but at the time I lived in Foxboro, Massachusetts, and my children were seven and eight years old when they lost their dad. Now they are grown and flown, as they say. I’m retired and do some volunteer work. And I live alone right now. My children live overseas. And I guess that’s about it right now.
My husband was an Air Force brat and then joined the Navy. So he lived all over the world and all over the country. And Foxboro was the first real home that he had. So it was very special to him. And it’s not surprising that my children chose to live overseas for a few reasons. Some political, some not, but I think Hearing that their dad lived all over the world, they kind of got a little bit of that from him. Maybe it’s genetic?
And I always told them, they don’t have to take care of me. That was not their job. And they took me at my word.
Life Before 9/11
When Mike and I first got married, we were both working. Mike had just gotten out of the Navy. We lived in Plainville, Connecticut. I had a condo and he commuted to New York City. At the time, he worked for a company that was based there. And I worked in Hartford, Connecticut for an insurance company. He worked as a power and utility insurance broker. And it was two hours and 45 minutes of one way commute. So you can tell how much he loved me. But, then we eventually started a family and moved to Foxboro, Massachusetts. I had two children within 11 months of each other. And I left my job and became a stay-at-home mom, and we had a very traditional marriage. I used to say I was like Beaver Cleaver’s mom vacuuming in my pearls and was very happy to be a stay-at-home mom. And the plan was that once both boys were old enough to go to after-school programs, I would get some kind of job, and that would be how we would save money for their college education. But I stayed home with both boys.
Unfortunately, Mike died when they were seven and eight. So our plans kind of, as they say, went up in smoke. But it was a very traditional marriage. He stayed in his lane. I stayed in my lane. I took care of the kids. He brought home the paycheck and did the finances. And we really loved each other very, very much. He was a great husband and father. He used to say, you know, I don’t know who the kid’s pediatrician is really, and I don’t need to know that because that’s your job. And I didn’t balance the checkbook because that was his job. And I think the reason our marriage worked so well is because we trusted each other 100% because we knew whatever decisions we made were in the best interest of the family. And we just let go of whatever worked and knew 100% that person was making the right decision. I don’t think we ever really had a big fight. I’m sure we had our day-to-day disagreements, but we never really had a big fight and our marriage worked very well for us. I don’t think it would have worked for other people because it was so traditional, but it worked for us. We were very involved in our church and in our local community.
Mike was a deacon in our church. He ran the confirmation program. He helped hire our pastor. A lot of our friends were people that we went to church with. We lived in a very nice neighborhood. It was a very happy life. The boys loved their father a lot. He was a very involved dad. He traveled a lot. Monday through Friday, he was gone, but when he came home, he was dad 24/7. Eventually, he got a job in Boston, and that’s why we moved to Foxboro. And that’s why I quit my job, so I could stay home and be with them. And eventually, he ended up working for Marsh, which was based in New York and he ended up working with all of the same people that he started with because these companies all merged. And we were really happy. We were very, very happy.
I was very shy and kind of acquiesced to him a lot more than I might have. And I was very quiet and kind of that stay at home person. But I was very happy being that. And I always wanted to be a mom. So my dreams had come true. I found the person that I loved the most in the world. He loved me. And we had these two wonderful little boys. So it went hand in hand. And we went through a lot. The first couple years we were married, we got married, we moved, we bought a house, we had two children. My second child was born 8 weeks prematurely, but we made it through and we still loved each other on the other side and trusted each other 100%. And, you know, we really loved each other a lot. So I felt like I got all my dreams.
We always used to say, we’d never cheat on each other because if we were so tired, if we got a hotel room, it would be to sleep. So that was our big joke. We knew we could trust each other because we were too tired.
Cindy’s Response to 9/11
It was funny because Mike had a very sarcastic and funny sense of humor. And he never said, I love you. If I said, I love you, he always said, oh, me too. Or he would say, ditto, or he had some, you know, saucy comeback. And on Monday night, we had a conversation and he said, I think I’ll make it home for dinner. And I said, I love you. And he said, I love you too. And he never said that. And I was like, wait, what did you just say? And so, you know, it was a funny conversation.
And then on Tuesday morning, you know, I got up, it was a regular day. I put the boys on the bus for school. You know, they were seven and eight, sent them off to school. I went to the church because I was part of a group called the Sprucers. And we were just doing some little renovations in the church, just trying to make it look a little better. And we were recovering some chairs. And so we were recovering these chairs and somebody had a TV on and said, oh, I just heard a plane flew into one of the World Trade Centers. Where’s Mike today? Because they knew he was in New York a lot. And I kind of brushed it off thinking it was probably a little plane that got off track. And then somebody said another plane hit a building. And that’s when we turned another TV on and saw what happened. So I decided to call the school that the boys were at because it was a K through 12 school. And I was worried that somehow or other, the boys would hear something and I wanted them to hear things from me. So the children’s minister went to the school to get the boys and I insisted on driving myself home. I don’t know why. And so I drove myself home because I wanted to be there when the boys got there and I needed a few minutes to pull myself together. And by the time I got to my house, somebody already had a pot of soup on the stove and there were people there. And I made everybody go home because it took a little while to get the boys out of school. I had to call the school and we had to get permission because nobody knew what was going on. And so I made everybody go home. Nobody wanted me to be alone, but I knew if the boys came home, there were a bunch of people in the house they’d know right away before I even said anything, something bad was going on.
And in the meantime, I was having these conversations with my sister who lived in Connecticut and was at work. And she was like, should we come up? And at first I was like, we don’t know what’s going on. So hold off. And then her husband said, are you two insane? Of course we’re going up. Because my sister and I don’t like to make too much out of anything. And her husband was like, no, we’re going get yourself out of work to my sister. We’re going to get their son who is the same age as my boys. And we’re going up there. They weren’t going to let her son leave school. And so they were arguing with his school. And then finally, they were on their way up. I got my kids. And I remember having a conversation with my kids, just saying to them, I don’t know what happened. All I know right now is some bad people flew planes into the building where dad is. But I’m not going to lie to you. I know it’s bad. And I will tell you everything I know as I know it. You can ask me anything you want, and I will not lie to you. But I don’t know anything right now. And I don’t know where daddy is. But as soon as we know, I will tell you. So right now, we just don’t know where he is. And I’ll answer any questions that you have. And I will always be honest with you. I won’t lie to you. And so we just kind of left it at that for the moment.
And I said, if there’s anybody, you’re safe with me, you’re safe with your Aunt Susan and your Uncle Ed, you’re safe with Mrs. Sides, who was the children’s minister. We will all keep you safe. But if you have any questions, you can ask any of those people, and they will always be honest with you. And I told all of them, whatever they ask, just tell them and if you don’t know, say, I don’t know. And then I realized Mike worked with people in New York, and he had an office in Boston, but he didn’t report to anybody in Boston. So I didn’t know who to call. I didn’t know who to call or what to do. So I finally got on the phone and I called the Boston office and this woman answered the phone and I explained the situation and she said, okay, give me his name and I will get back to you. And to this day, we’re still friendly. And she got the head of the Boston office and he called me back and he said, I don’t really know Mike very well. I know he has an office here, but I’ll figure out what to do and call you back. And I don’t know why this mattered to me, but I said, he drove the company car to the airport in Boston, and it’s there somewhere. Could somebody make that go away? I don’t know where it is. And he said, yep, don’t worry about it. And I said, should I go to New York? And he said, just hold off. And then he called me back with all the numbers for the hospitals so that we could call to see if he was at one of the hospitals because we just didn’t know anything.
And I remember my sister and I stayed up almost all night calling hospitals just to see if he had been admitted to one of the hospitals. And then the next day, this guy, John Smith, who was head of the Boston office said, Marsh, the company that Mike worked for, had gotten three floors in a hotel, one with rooms for us, one with like all computers and food and stuff, and then another floor with like support systems, people that were advocates for you, daycare for if you had your kids, and psychiatrists and psychologists from New York Presbyterian, if anybody needed help. And then I had to go to New York to fill out a missing persons report. And so he said, how do you want to get to New York? Do you want us to put you in a car? Do you want to take the train? Do you want to fly? How do you want to go? And they sent us to New York. And we went down and we had to fill out a missing persons report. We went to the pier and it was just hundreds of detectives taking missing persons reports. And I remember thinking, as soon as I saw New York and saw what was going on, I just knew in my gut he was dead. And I remember my sister and I, you get this sort of black humor. And he was like, what was he wearing? I was like, I don’t know what he wore to work, he was in a meeting. It was casual. So I just made something up because I didn’t know. Then he was like, well, how tall was he? And I said, 6’3. How much did he weigh? How much do you think he’d want to weigh? And we just both kind of giggled and the detective looked at me like I was insane. And I was like, these questions are stupid, he’s not alive and you’re not going to find him.
So then on the way back, I remember we were there for a couple of days to get all this stuff done because you had to go through things like what his pension was, what his stock options were. Like, we didn’t know if I was going to get a paycheck, I didn’t know if I had any money. I didn’t know any of that. And so I said to Sue at dinner that night, these people were sitting at the table with us and they were like, we’re going to find her. They were looking for their daughter. And I was like, the boys cannot hear this because I just know he’s not alive. So I called my pastor and I said, we’re going to have a memorial service, this is what I want. Anything else I don’t care about. Can somebody find Mike’s mother and his two sisters? It’s sort of a complicated family situation with Mike’s family. We were close to one of his sisters, but not real close to his mom and his other sister, and they didn’t have any money. And I said to the pastor, don’t pay for them, call the Red Cross, because the Red Cross will pay for it. And get them up here and get them a hotel room if they want to come. And because I didn’t even know if they’d want to come. And I knew one of his sisters would. But the other, his mom and his other sister, I just didn’t even know if they would come or be in any condition to come. It’s sort of a long family history with a lot of alcohol and drug abuse. And they ended up coming.
And my church pulled together a memorial service in the blink of an eye, and it was perfect. It was exactly what I would have wanted, what Mike would have wanted. And our poor pastor, Mike, had just hired him. I think he had been on the job about a week and did a beautiful job. And then we came home and had a memorial service. And it was awful. It just was awful. because we just didn’t have a body, always in the back of your mind, you’re thinking, did I do the right thing? And Daniel, my oldest, was really smart like his dad. He said to me, I remember we were sitting in bed one night and I was reading to the boys and he said, mom, if Osama bin Laden were Christian, and if Osama bin Laden takes Jesus in his heart, does he get to go to heaven? And I was like, oh crap, you’re eight years old. And I said, you know what, Daniel? You’re right. If Osama bin Laden takes Jesus in his heart, he gets to go to heaven too.
And here’s what I believe. I believe that he is so evil that there’s no room in his heart for Jesus. But if he does, and he makes room for him, he does get to go to heaven. However, God is still going to hold him responsible for what he did. So that’s all I know. And then he said, if God can do anything, and dad was such a good person, why did he let this happen to him? Those are the kind of questions he was asking at 8. And I was like, holy crap. Why do I have to answer these questions? And it would always be at like, 10 o’clock at night because he couldn’t sleep. He would come get me or we’d be reading a story. The boys were just so traumatized. And I just remember thinking, I just, how am I going to do this? How am I ever going to raise these two boys? And why did this happen? I had the same questions. So I mean, I couldn’t answer them for myself. How was I going to answer them for them? And then about a month later, I was talking to a friend of mine who also lost her husband who worked for the same company. And she said she heard that with the first identification, they send the police to your house. And the very next day, a cruiser pulled into my driveway. And that’s when I got my first set of remains for Mike. And I just couldn’t believe it. It was like serendipity that she had told me that. And then we get our first set of remains. And I think I got a total of 7 phone calls from the medical examiner’s office with remains for Mike. And I could still get more even today. And that’s what people don’t understand. Like, you know, you never know when you get them all until they identify the very last set of remains. And people say, you could always say, don’t call me anymore. But some of those remains in there could be terrorist remains. And Mike didn’t want to be in New York. And he certainly doesn’t want to be with them. So I want them all in Foxboro because that was his home. So we had a burial. And then we had a cremation and another burial. So it’s hard. It’s just really hard. It never goes away. It’s like the gift that keeps on giving. .
I think it’s really important that we don’t forget and we make people aware that it’s still hard for family members and for family members of firefighters and police officers, it’s still going on. There’s a few families that just got their first identifications this year. You know, I mean, it never goes away.
Everybody always says closure, but it’s really understanding. And it’s a way of understanding it and they’re giving them, it’s just gonna sound weird, but they’re giving them a gift.
There’s some really good free teaching resources on the 911day.org website for teachers, for families, there’s all kinds of stuff out there. There’s videos, there’s like all different ways of approaching it. And it’s all free. And full disclosure, I’m on the board. And they’re going to really enhance them this year for the 25th anniversary. Because it’s not only here’s what the day was about, but here’s what you can do personally. And it’s aimed at different age levels.
After 9/11
And after 911, I changed because now I couldn’t be that shy vacuuming in my pearls person. And I ended up going to this meeting where Senator Kennedy was there, Ted Kennedy, and he had all these resources there. It was in a big ballroom in Boston. And it was this meeting to kind of say, here’s what we’re doing for you, blah, blah, blah. It’s all great. And I stood up in that meeting and one of his aides tried to shush me. And the senator said, no, I want to hear what she has to say. And I kind of yelled at everybody. You all think you’re helping us and you’re not. And I’m still friends with this person today, who always says you’re responsible for my broken arm, because he said to this day, you know, I never want to hear that Mrs. McGinty has a problem. If she calls our office, everybody has to stop. If she needs a piece of tape, she gets a piece of tape. Because I just said, you all think you’re helping us and you’re not. Everybody has a different form they want us to fill out. And I can’t do that anymore. I have two kids who are totally grief stricken. And so am I. And there’s 10 people up there. You want 10 different forms. Everybody wants a copy of the death certificate I don’t have. And you want a copy of my driver’s license and my marriage certificate. And then next week you change the form. And I said to this woman at the FBI, and you didn’t even call me and invite me to the meeting at the airport. And I didn’t know anything just because Mike was in the building. You don’t think I needed that information? I made her cry.
And then from that day on, I just, I found my voice and things got not better after that, but they changed because after that, nobody was allowed to change the forms. I got my Red Cross money. I got my United Way money. I mean, stuff started to happen after that. And every family in Massachusetts, because of Ted Kennedy, got an advocate. He created this whole program and he never took credit for it. And then a nonprofit started, the Mass 9/11 Fund. He never took credit for that. And then after that, we started another program to help families of soldiers in Iraq that were injured or had problems after 9/11 that had ties to Massachusetts to do the same thing for them. He never took credit for that either. He gave us the credit for that. But he just was so wonderful to us.
Oh my gosh, he was so good to us. And just the other day, his wife, Vicki, and I just exchanged messages on LinkedIn because I had my first grandson and he was so helpful to my son, Daniel, who had a lot of problems early on. I wanted her to know that he was doing really well. He was married and I just had my first grandson. And I think of the senator so often that he would be so happy to hear that. So I wanted her to know that. And she sent me a message back saying she was so happy to hear that and that she said, my Teddy would be so happy to hear that. I still hear from her periodically. But he was a standup senator who did the right thing. And I mean, I would never want to be known for my low, the worst thing that I’ve done, I’d wanna be known for all the good things that I’ve done. And he really deserves that. He just was so good to us and very quietly. He called to express his condolences to everybody. I mean, I answered my phone and I heard, Hi, this is Ted Kennedy. And I was like, okay, which one of my friends is playing a sick joke on me? And then I realized it really was him. And he said, if you need anything, here’s my number.
I was like, wait, what? He goes, get a pen and write it down. So I did. And I needed him a few times and I called him and he came through for me. One of the things that I tell people, ’cause people will always say, oh, you lost your husband on 9/11. I said, look, everybody has their thing. Everybody that walks by you in the grocery store, they all have their tragedy. The only difference between you and them is yours was on TV and it’s on TV every year. But you got a lot of help because it was on TV. A lot of these people walking by you, they don’t get help. So if you can be anything, you be kind and you help people. That is the motto that you should live by. If there’s anything you can do to help someone, you help them. That’s your job. That’s why this happened to you.
I want people to know he was a great father. I want people to know that it’s not for selfish reasons. I mean, I don’t want people to think that like I had it any harder than anybody else, but here’s something that people don’t realize. Like all those terrorists sitting in Guantanamo, we’re not even at trial yet. No. It’s still pre-trial hearings. And like even my own sister will say, well, why do you care? Okay, if they die, they die innocent.
I don’t care. At this point, my feelings about it have changed over the years. The best outcome for me, and I know the families don’t all agree on this, because how are you going to get 3,000 families to agree on anything? I don’t want them to get the death penalty. I just want them to be declared guilty and get life in prison so I don’t have to hear about them anymore. And why should they die innocent?
What does that say about Mike? You know, they shouldn’t be declared innocent. I know we messed it up. I know we tortured them and we did bad things and we really screwed that up. But why should they die innocent? .
We should understand what happened and who these people were. It’s funny because I used to do some talks in Foxborough because there’s a memorial there that a friend of mine helped put together. And one of the parents was there and there were young kids. They were like in 2nd and 3rd grade. And a father came up to me afterwards and thanked me because he said, I always wanted to have this conversation, but I didn’t know how to have it. And I didn’t know what to say, but you framed it really nicely on an age-appropriate level. So he said, I’m really glad that you did that. And you also, like I always end with, if you can be anything, be kind. And then I asked the kids, what’s a way that you can be kind? And they came up with great stuff. I can sit with a person at lunch who’s sitting alone. I can hold the door. I can write a thank you. And if they get stuck, I start with a few things. But they really get going and they think of some really great things that they can do. And I said, all of that stuff helps. If people aren’t mad, they’re going to not hurt people. Part of hurting people starts out when you’re mad. I ask them, and then I challenge them to go out and do a kind deed in Mike’s name. Or if they know somebody, or I ask, does anybody have anybody serving in the military? And I challenge them to go out and do a kind deed in that person’s name. Because then I think it feels real to them.
How We Should Honor 9/11
This is very important to me. I joined the board of this organization called the 911 Day of Service. It’s 911day.org. And it was started by these two guys, Jay Winick and David Payne. David Payne was a friend of Jay’s, and Jay’s brother was a volunteer firefighter who was an attorney who was not in the building. But of course, when he saw what happened, he ran into the building and died. And David wanted to find a way to recreate what happened in the minutes after 9/11, how everybody came together, everybody, people ran into the building, you saw flags flying. I mean, my, I never would have made it through if my community, Foxboro, my sister and her family didn’t take care of me. They wrapped us in love. And I never had a good place to be on 9/11. Like the first year we went to Ground Zero, the minute we stepped on the site, my youngest son broke out in hives. Thank God we were standing next to a paramedic who checked him out. It was weird. And then they went away, which tells you all the junky stuff that was down there. But then the second year we went away and that didn’t feel right.
So I joined the board of this organization. So they started this thing called 911day.org. And they pack meals for food insecure people because September is food insecurity month. And they pack millions and millions of meals all around the country. They organize these meal packs. And they ask, and you can join a meal pack, but they ask people to do a kind deed in the name of someone or just anything. And it can be anything. These are all in their educational things. They just ask you to do something nice for someone because they want to recreate what happened in the minutes afterwards, how everybody came together, unity. Everybody came together to support each other after those minutes. And that’s how I would like the day to be remembered, how we all came together and helped each other. Not the horribleness of it, not the bad parts. I want everybody to remember how we all came together in love and unity and supported each other. I want everybody to do something nice for people. Donate to your local food bank, hold the door for somebody. And everybody, I don’t care how old you are, you can do something nice for somebody.
Like one day, let’s just be nice to each other. Just for one day. I think we could do it for one day.


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