Roadside Remembrance
Wedged near a trucking site in Clinton Township, a roadside memorial honors the memory of Krystle Gall and her brother Joe Jr.
A laminated photo of the teens is framed on a stand in a mound of stones. There, concrete angels sit trumpeting on bricks, where a solar lantern also hangs. The lantern helps illuminate the site for their mother's evening visits.
"Iusually come here at night," Robin Gall says, telling how darkness helps to shield her grief from the curiosity of passing drivers.
"It's a place for me to go and think. ... I never really get any answers."
Not far from the entrance on Saxonburg Boulevard, black mounds of carbon coke, made from coal, are contained by massive, rectangular stones. A sign reads "Welcome Home, Don Martin drivers. Better than all the rest."
The sign serves as a beacon for drivers, just as the lantern shepherds Gall. Like many struggling to cope with loss, she is drawn to the site that changed her life.
Robin and her husband, Joe, of Clinton Township lost their oldest son J.J. in 1981. He was 9 months old and died of sudden infant death syndrome, an unexplainable phenomenon that can happen to children between birth and age 1.Twenty years later, the Galls endured a tragedy more difficult to explain. Their other two children died in a car wreck.Joe Jr., 18 years old, and Krystle, 16, died instantly in a head-on collision less than a mile from home. It was 3 a.m., and Robin later was told her children's last moments were without tension: They likely knew no fear or panic when encountering an oncoming vehicle along the narrow road."They since paved it and made it a little wider," Robin explained. "People would go around the potholes. The two cars hit head-on."Although the children are buried in a Delmont, Pa., cemetery near their older brother, Robin felt a stronger connection to the site where their final moment was spent.Building a memorial there has helped her maintain a connection with the teens she is unable to let go."I just feel like that's where they ended," she said.
"They died so quick. You just sit there and look around — try to figure it out.""(McClymonds Supply and Transit), they actually own the property. They just allow me to do it," she said, pointing to a mammoth rock the workers moved to help shield the memorial."Truckers go in and out of there all day. It kind of keeps them an idea it's there."To further preserve her children's memory, Robin sold cookbooks to finance a fountain in Saxonburg's Roebling Park, which was dedicated on Memorial Day in 2004.The fountain is topped by an engraved stone that bears the images of all three children."I just don't want my kids to be forgotten," she said.<BR></BR>
In the opposite direction on Route 228, another memorial graces the roadside.A white wooden cross with the inscription "Forever Missed" is positioned on a scenic hillside in Middlesex Township, just east of where Bob Rabenstein died in a collision in 1999.A member of the township road crew, Rabenstein had been called to the job when workers were scarce on a snowy March morning."When the roads are awful you have to get out ASAP," said Sylvia Rabenstein of Mars, explaining how her 39-year-old son's pickup slid across the road and was hit broadside."Knowing Bob, his mind was on that garage already."As a way to memorialize his brother, Sylvia's youngest son Tim, now 40, built the cross, with stenciling done by Tim's wife Susan."I think after the first year it started leaning on me," Tim said."So I decided to cement it in. I said, 'He's staying. He's not going to be forgotten. This is the place where his last breath was taken.'"Careful to avoid conflicts with traffic, Tim constructed the memorial on private land that borders the public roadway."I had to make it big enough, so you could see it," he explained."It's amazing how many people still talk about it," Tim said, describing an often-heard comment: "Every time I drive by here, I think of your brother."
Although the Gall and Rabenstein memorials both are housed on private land, many can be found on public easements.And while they are technically illegal in Pennsylvania, state Department of Transportationspokesman Mark Hillwig said workers approach them with compassion."PennDOT does recognize that these families need the opportunity to grieve and to mourn in this fashion," he said."Realistically speaking, most of the time we see these memorials set up — a lot of times it's a temporary thing."In the case of Rabenstein's memorial, there is little chance it will be abandoned.Tim has repainted it several times, and Sylvia replaces floral decorations according to the season.With the recent onset of spring, Tim, Sylvia, and her 13-year-old grandson, Michael Young, replaced poinsettias with day lilies — a favorite of Bob's, who was an avid gardener.Traveling the road on a regular basis, Michael said the site lends comfort even between those visits and times he helps by trimming weeds."I see it at least five days a week, so I'm always thinking about him," he said."He was such a great guy. There's nobody that could be anything like him."
Although a memorial remains where her daughter died on Plains Church Road, Stephanie Lind finds no comfort there.Instead, she avoids the spot in Adams Township where Madeline and five passengers were traveling in 2006 over a "jump hill" commonly used by teenagers.Madeline lost control of the vehicle, which went airborne for some distance before crashing into a hillside."I was unable to go there until the first year anniversary," said Stephanie of Cranberry Township, describing how her 17-year-old daughter was killed with her friend, Karisa Samuels.The day she did visit, a policeman from the accident scene accompanied her, explaining the turn of events that took her daughter's life.Also at her side was Jim Clair, owner of Ultimate Defensive Driving in Cranberry Township, where Stephanie has become a regular speaker and advocate for safe driving."I think it reaffirmed what I thought had happened," she recalled. "My daughter was driving. She was the one that decided to go really fast on that stretch of road. It made it more real, the fact that she's dead and not coming back. When you lose someone that close, it takes a long time before you accept that they aren't coming back."Stephanie said even though she avoids the location, mementos at the scene revealed that others still find solace there."The hardest thing for me to see was someone had left a graduation tassel with the year that she would have graduated: 2007," Stephanie said."I haven't been back there. I left a photo. It said her father and I will love her forever."Instead, Stephanie attempts to move forward. She lobbies to have the road altered, and she speaks at the Cranberry driving school."I never know what I'm going to say, and I usually cry, but it helps," Stephanie said.To reinforce her message, Clair gives his students a hard look backward — revisiting the memorial with every class."Every young person I work with goes through that site," he said."Normally what happens is the young people have a problem with speed. (After seeing the site) they don't have a problem with speed anymore.""The tree is still there," he said."Kids still leave messages for Maddie on trees."
