9/11 Documentary "We Were Quiet Once" Created Locally
By: Laura Hartog and Dawn Pellas
Updated: November 15, 2012
A fundraising campaign helped a local young filmmaker create a September 11 documentary.
Somerset native, 22-year-old Laura Beachy, produced the film "We Were Quiet Once." The feature-length documentary shows how the crash of Flight 93 affected the people of Somerset County who witnessed it from the ground.
The film's executive producer, Beachy grew up in Somerset and was in sixth grade several miles from the field where the plane went down in 2001.
The expected completion of "We Were Quiet Once" is January.
About the Film: (From WeWereQuietOnce.com)
Somerset County: the proverbial Mayberry of southwestern Pennsylvania; a picture perfect small town portrayed in wholesome television programs of the 1950s; where life is viewed through a window of family-owned hardware stores, fruit markets, and old-fashioned barbershops. Where a deal is made with a strong handshake and those on the street know more about your family than you do yourself. Life embodies a quiet pleasant innocence derived from an unknown town in Anywhere, America...that is until September 11, 2001 when United Flight 93 crashed in its backyard and launched Somerset County onto a national platform.
This year, on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, a memorial will be dedicated in what is now a National Park. What lasting effects does a national event have on empathetic individuals living in a small town? How do those who have lived in anonymity for their entire lives deal with media attention? Does the constant presence of a tragedy in daily life perpetuate grief indefinitely? Put simply, what happens when your town is known for a tragedy.
