Dec. 21, 1998, is the tenth anniversary of what has come to be known around the world as the Lockerbie Air Disaster. Hamilton says that the series of activities the Scholars plan and host annually during Remembrance Week in October are important in keeping alive the memories of those who died, but she wanted something more, something permanent yet mobile.

 Her idea was to do a Remembrance Quilt, designed in a way that would allow each SU victim's life to be highlighted in a block containing personal artifacts.

 Hamilton, who had never done quilting before, took her idea to Francis Parks, director of African American programs and Students Offering Service at Hendricks Chapel. Parks, a longtime quilter and a member of the Hendricks Chapel Quiltmakers, helped Hamilton get the project under way. "Had I not been naive about quilting," says Hamilton, "I might never have proposed the idea. It has taken much more work than I ever imagined and at times has been very emotional."

 Hamilton wrote to the deceased students' families, telling them about the project and asking for information about and materials from each victim. "The outpouring from most of the families was amazing," she says. Within a short time, she had received what amounted to several boxes of items. One family sent the denim jacket that their son had worn at the time of the bombing. It had been washed repeatedly by the family to remove the bloodstains.

 As the material arrived, Hamilton organized it, read through the letters-sometimes several times-and came to know each victim.

 "Kimberly spent a lot of time with the folders," says Parks. "Each of those 35 students had a life and a story, and Kimberly got to know them very well." Once the project had been announced, the Hendricks Chapel Quiltmakers were joined by some two dozen students.

 The quilt design was done by Jeanne Riley, a quilter who is also an administrative assistant in the School of Architecture dean's office. The quilt contains 36 blocks-one for each of the victims and an extra block to make the design work out-around a large center panel. The center panel-about 3 feet by 5 feet-is the Dove of Peace from a Christmas card designed by Jonathan Hoefer '91, an artist who was a student in the College of Visual and Performing Arts 10 years ago and a friend of Mark Lawrence Tobin, one of the bombing victims. Tobin's mother, herself a quilter, offered the card design for the center panel of the quilt, and Hoefer gave permission to reproduce an enlarged version of his design. The names of the 35 victims are embroidered around the dove as part of the center panel.

 Each of the blocks is the size of a standard sheet of paper (8.5 by 11 inches) and contains material the victims' families felt were important or were somehow representative of each student's life.

 The mother of Anne Lindsey Otenasek sent, among other items, a piece of fabric she and Anne Lindsey had bought in London. The two were going to use it in a quilt when Anne Lindsey returned to the United States. "They never got a chance to do that," says Tracy Hogarth, a senior environmental forestry biology major at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

 Hogarth says she chose to design and sew Anne Lindsey's block because of "some of the words her mother used to describe her" and because Anne Lindsey "was interested in working with children with special needs, which is something I had done for about five years." Anne Lindsey's mother sent a picture of an angel and the fabric they bought in London. "I used the fabric from the dress Anne Lindsey had worn to her sister's wedding to make a heart," Hogarth says. "Her mother wanted at least one star included for Anne Lindsey's father, who had died last year, so I used a star background."

 Hogarth also did the block for Alexia Kathryn Tsairis, a photojournalism student at SU. Her parents have since started the Alexia Foundation for World Peace; each year, a photojournalism student is awarded a scholarship in her name. "I used the foundation logo as part of her square," Hogarth says.

 Getting the project going was difficult for many of the quilters, Hogarth says. "That first meeting we all cried as we sat around the table going through the various folders, letting the group know why we had decided to work on particular squares."

 "This is a very tough, emotional thing to do-especially if one has children that age," says Riley. "Ten years ago, my children were in high school. While I have my children to enjoy as they turn into adults, these families are left with only the memories of their children. I will gladly do anything to help them preserve those memories."

 Beatriz Garmendia-Doval was a doctoral candidate in computer science when she heard about the project. A member of the chapel quiltmakers group on and off for about three years, she became part of the project even though she was in the final stages of writing her dissertation and knew she couldn't work on it as much as she would have liked. "It was something I wanted to do," says the native of Spain who begins a postdoctorate research fellowship at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland, in January.

 She designed and sewed the block of Amy Elizabeth Shapiro, a photography major who liked to ski. "Her newest passion was ballooning," says Garmendia-Doval. "Amy's block has a camera, skis and hot air balloon in it with a photo of her in the middle of the balloon, as if she were flying."

 Remembrance Scholar Chris Glorioso is a broadcast journalism and political science major who had never quilted before becoming involved in the Remembrance Quilt.

 "I couldn't think of a better way to remember and celebrate the lives of these 35 students," he says. "Once I got started I realized, with Francis Parks' help, that quilting isn't about the quilt-although this certainly will be a beautiful piece when it's finished. Quilting is about the interaction among the quilters and working with artifacts that were central parts of each of these students' lives. There's no better way to get to know and remember them than through the materials and letters sent by their families."

 Glorioso met Scott Marsh Cory's parents at the Remembrance Convocation in October. "My parents and his parents just stood and talked about Scott for nearly an hour-about everything from how terrible it was to have gone through that tragedy to how wonderful it is that Scott's and my lives have connected," he says.

 Scott was a Boston Red Sox fan. His father sent Glorioso an old, dusty Red Sox baseball cap that was Scott's. "What struck me more than their letter or any other artifact was the cap. It reminded me of going to the ballpark in Baltimore with my father," Glorioso says. "There was a strong connection made through the cap. We had a common experience in going to the ballpark with our fathers. My father and I share some wonderful memories of going to ballgames, and I'm sure Scott and his father did also."

 It's still difficult, even after 10 years, says Glorioso, for many of the families to think and talk about the tragedy and to face coming to the University. "But they come," he says. "It's a way of remembering a certain part of their children's lives, a way of honoring them and a way of thanking the University community for the help and support during that difficult time 10 years ago and through the years since."

 Hamilton says she had long phone conversations with parents as they told her about their children. "All the families are at different levels of grief at this point," she says. "It has been a real life-changing experience for me."

 The story she remembers most vividly is that of Suzanne Marie Miazga, whose mother was the representative of the parents at the Remembrance Convocation in October. "She told me her daughter's body fell to the earth next to an ambulance station in Lockerbie," Hamilton says. "One of the ambulance drivers came out of the building and found Suzanne and covered her. In her memory, the man and the others at the station planted a pink rosebush and later wrote Suzanne's mother about it and sent a photo. What those people in Lockerbie had no way of knowing was that Suzanne's favorite color was pink and her favorite flowers were roses."

 Suzanne had pink roses on all her furniture and all of her things, says Hamilton. She was so fond of roses, in fact, that her nickname had become Rose. "This man, not knowing all of this, planted a pink rosebush and sent Suzanne's mother a letter telling her what he had done and that the ambulance corps would take care of the pink rosebush in her daughter's memory.

 Suzanne's mother was so moved that she actually flew to Lockerbie to meet the man and see the rosebush. They've kept in touch through the years."

 Suzanne's mother sent a picture of the meticulously tended rosebush, showing the care the man had taken in preserving the memory of a young woman he had never met. The picture is part of Suzanne's block in the quilt.

 Another story Hamilton tells is about Karen Lee Hunt. A stranger, someone who had never met the victim, wrote and recorded a song, and sent a cassette of it to Karen's parents. They, in turn, sent it to Hamilton and asked her to make sure it's included in the quilt. "We created a pocket out of one of Karen's shirts they sent us and put the tape in the pocket," Hamilton says. "That will travel along with the quilt wherever it goes."

 Hamilton says the parents' letters will be sewn into each appropriate square of the quilt "so the parents' words and stories will travel with the quilt, too. Every letter had its own character to it. Some were very personal, while others were more formal. Some were joyful, while others showed the depth of pain the parents still feel. As much as there is a character to every one of these victims, there is a character to the people they left behind, too. And I think that's an important part of the quilt."

 Hamilton's SU studies end this month-she's a December grad-but she will remain in Syracuse while she looks for a job and takes care of some unfinished business-bringing to closure the Remembrance Quilt project. She and the quilters are also creating a Remembrance Quilt Journal-a history of the making of the quilt-that will travel with the quilt.

 She plans to do fund raising to help cover the cost of the quilt's travels and would like to see the quilt make its way to Lockerbie, saying "they, too, are part of this whole experience."

 Hamilton says she does not want the quilt to be a political statement about terrorism, or about tragic loss, but rather wants "people to see it as a celebration of who these students were. I think people often forget that each of these students was somebody's daughter or sister or best friend. I think this quilt helps bring that idea home, and I hope it helps people cherish life in a new way."