Crystal Thwreatt, 24, gave up her seat on a flight home to Georgia so she could spend a few seconds yesterday cradling her year-old daughter over the flag-draped coffin of former President Ronald Reagan.
“What matters most of all to me that she’ll be able to say that she was here,” said Thwreatt, an advocate for abused children in suburban Atlanta.
A sense of history, a feeling that this was a moment worth remembering, drew many of the mourners into the line that formed beside the Capitol Reflecting Pool yesterday and through the night.
From around the country, they came to pay respects to a president not all had voted for but all claimed to respect, a leader they said had won their faith and restored their national pride, a larger–than-life commander in chief from an era when America was still locked in the Cold War.
They came to salute the 10th U.S. president to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda, where the viewing will have gone on for 34 hours by the time it ends at 7 a.m. tomorrow.
Some came by bus or train, others by plane and taxi. Many in the crowd seemed to be dressed for a parade – some shirtless, others draped in flags or wearing uniforms. But the mood reflected the respectful purpose of the day. A quick cheer that went up after 21 F-15E jets flew overhead faded into respectful silence. One man raised a cell phone to snap a picture during the 21-gun salute. The woman beside him wept.
Derace Owens, 60, of Jacksonville, Texas, flew into town early yesterday and quietly bore the humid day’s heat, with temperatures that climbed to 92 degrees. His starched white shirt never withered beneath his broad, white cowboy hat.
‘Right time, right place’
“I think he was God’s gift to the nation at the right time and right place,” Owens, a commissioned security officer, said with a catch in his deep voice. He waited 16 hours to execute a smart right-face and military salute toward Reagan’s casket.
Vickie Morse, 57, and her granddaughters Kaely and Keely Clapper – ages 11 and 14 – said they had come to witness a powerful public event.
“This is a great moment in history, and I wanted the girls to be part of it,” said Morse as the girls did schoolwork under the shade of a small umbrella. “Ronald Reagan gave us back America. He brought integrity back to our society.”
Even those with little recollection of the Reagan presidency felt themselves drawn to the historic day.
Dennis George Lennox II, 20, drove all night from his home near Saginaw, Mich., to say goodbye to a president whose tenure had ended before Lennox entered grade school.
“President Reagan has been a lifelong hero of mine and an idol – I felt like I had to come,” he said. “Through his policies and his actions, he’s inspired a lot of people in my generation.”
Andrew Means, 38, traveled only the distance of Oakton, Va., but his feelings for Reagan were just as strong. When Means voted for the first time, it was Reagan’s name he checked on the ballot. Running through his mind all night, he said, was the thought: “They’re going to have to look long and hard to find another man like him.”
Just before 10 p.m., Peter DiMaria, 73, climbed gingerly down the Capitol steps after viewing Reagan’s casket, partly overcome with emotion and partly out of fatigue. He planned to take a quick nap at Union Station before catching a train home to Staten Island, N.Y.
‘Something I had to do’
Neither the weather nor the wait played into his decision to make the pilgrimage to Washington. “It was something I had to do,” DiMaria said. “Say goodbye to an old friend.”
More Top Picks Crock Pot 6 Quart Cook Carry
Donald A. Ritchie, a Senate historian, suggested that shared politics was only one of the reasons why citizens flock to take part in such somber occasions.
“There’s a certain catharsis involved in the idea of a president lying in state, so that people can come and pay their respects,” he said. “They feel some closure, they can vent some of their emotion, and some are just curious and want their children to see a piece of history.”
The historical resonance of the event appealed to the Smallwood family of Temple Hills, in Prince George’s County, who also stood in line for most of the day. “It’s a life-changing event,” said Ira Smallwood, 40. “Once you see it, it’s something you can treasure forever.”
Smallwood said he and his family – wife Ruby, 41, daughter Takisha, 17, and son Tonek, 10 – made the best of the oppressive heat, chatting with others in the queue to pass the time.
The Smallwoods, like Owens and Thwreatt, were awed when they stepped inside the Rotunda, the ceremonial center of the Capitol. Reagan’s casket lay between military guards beneath a soaring gold dome.
After filing outside into a deep blue night, Thwreatt joined other mourners at an Irish pub with seven of the people she had met 16 hours earlier as the line formed at the reflecting pool.
She had cried in the Rotunda, thanking Reagan silently and bidding him goodbye. In the end, she said, the heat and hassle had been a small price to pay to share the moment with her baby girl.
“Even if it wasn’t President Reagan,” she said, “I’d probably be here anyway just to show support and to be a part of it all.”
Sun staff writer Julie Hirschfeld Davis contributed to this article.