Local family reacts to Pope’s visit
to Ground Zero
By Christie L. Chicoine
CS&T Staff Writer
NEW YORK — Pope Benedict XVI’s message at Ground
Zero that love overcomes hatred resonated with John Sigmund,
a member of Our Mother of Consolation Parish in the Chestnut
Hill section of Philadelphia.
John and Ruth Sigmund’s 25-year-old daughter, Johanna,
perished in the World Trade Center attacks on 9-11. She
had worked on the 93rd Floor of Tower One.
Contemplating Christ as “a victim of evil,”
John Sigmund said his daughter “shared Christ’s
victimhood.”
Johanna, who received the sacraments of Baptism, first Communion
and confirmation at Consolation Parish, moved to New York
in the fall of 1998, after graduating from Fairfield University
in Connecticut. She first worked in Fred Alger Management’s
New Jersey office. In 1999, after receiving a promotion,
she transferred to the World Trade Center.
When Johanna was an undergraduate majoring in economics
at Fairfield, she took a course in New York architecture,
her father said in a 2002 interview. “She was very
proud of her office,” he said.
In that same interview, Ruth Sigmund recalled the day their
daughter described her new office. “She said, ‘Mom,
I have a door and a window.’
“In fact,” Ruth added at that time, “she
was on the side of the building the plane hit.”
Johanna Sigmund is buried at West Laurel Hill Cemetery in
Bala Cynwyd.
John Sigmund said he was impressed that Pope Benedict visited
Ground Zero. “It’s a sacred spot.”
CS&T Staff Writer Christie L. Chicoine can be reached
at (215) 587-2468 or cchicoin@adphila.org.
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