Families go on yet hold on

BY LAUREN TERRAZZANO | Newsday Staff Writer

A decade after the crash of TWA Flight 800 in the Atlantic Ocean off Long Island, no road map has directed families how to move forward.

They have learned to go on, while holding on to their memories. There have been marriages, divorces, grandchildren, new jobs, retirements. One family used the tragedy to counsel others, including those who lost loved ones on Sept. 11, 2001. Some have conquered their fear of flying, others have become advocates for airlines safety. Here are their stories:

Julie Stuart, lost fiance

Stuart vowed 10 years ago that when she got the ring back, she would never take it off. She has lived up to that promise and now wears two engagement rings.

A blue sapphire and diamond band is on her left hand, along with the wedding ring she put on when she married her husband in 1999.

The diamond solitaire, flanked by two smaller stones in its antique-style setting, sits on the ring finger of her right hand, ever since it was discovered in its maroon silk box bobbing in the Atlantic amid the charred wreckage of TWA Flight 800. Her fiance at the time, Andrew Krukar, 40, an engineer from Bridgewater, Conn., was killed when the plane crashed on July 17, 1996. Stuart was supposed to meet him in Paris two days later, where he was planning to officially propose.

They met while working at the same company, where she was a human resources manager and he was an engineer. They had picked out the ring together at a jewelry store.

Along with the passage of time, a marriage and two children, Olivia, 4 and Ronnie, 7, the diamond ring has remained a token of love. Stuart, now 40 and living in Bridgewater, Conn., has since set up a scholarship in Andy's name at Bridgewater regional school for a student who goes on to architecture or engineering. Andy is buried in a cemetery a few minutes from her house. "I go by every day," she said. "It's nice that he's here."

And she said she still keeps in touch with Andy's family. "It's good that they've seen me so happy," she said. She said her husband, Tom, whom she had been friends with for a long time, generously understands the role Andy still plays in her life.

Richard Hammer, lost wife, daughter

Hammer draws upon the wisdom of the poet Robert Frost when he is overcome, all these years later, by the death of his wife, Beverly, and daughter, Tracy. Beverly, a former English teacher, often read the poet's work and Hammer lives by some of Frost's words. "In three words I can tell you everything about life: It goes on," he quotes. "It's not something you forget or turn your back on, but it goes on."

Hammer, 71, remarried in 1998 and now spends part of the year in Naples, Fla., with his wife Diane and part of the year in Glen Head. He has had several heart surgeries and sold his East Hampton dream home because it was far from the hospital care he needed at the time.

Beverly, 51, who had gotten her stockbroker's license just before her death, was accompanying Tracy to Paris because Tracy, 28, was presenting a paper. Tracy was about to graduate from the University of Michigan with a degree in veterinary medicine at the time of the crash.

Leonard Romagna, lost wife

Romagna, 86, a former Port Washington resident who now lives in Sun City, Fla., refuses to go back to the site of the crash. "The reality is, it's 10 years later. I just don't feel I want to open up anything."

He lost his wife of 50 years, Barbara, who was going on a two-week vacation "to get away from me," he joked. "She was going there to enjoy France and go to museums."

A few times a year, he looks forward to visits from the couple's two sons; Russell of Washington, D.C., and John of Clinton, N.J. The last decade has brought Romagna four great-grandchildren. "She would have loved to have seen them."

He planned to mark the anniversary as he does each year, at the St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church near his Florida home. There, he places flowers on the altar.

Joan Reinertsen, lost son, daughter-in-law

Reinertsen, 64, formerly Joan Holst, of St. James, each day looks at a picture of her late son, Eric Holst, a Center Moriches dentist who lived in Manorville, and daughter-in-law, Virginia. What would they look like now? Eric was 32 at the time of the crash and his wife was 31.