Iowa widow of 9/11 attack shares final voicemail from husband

By Laura Terrell

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    NEWTON, Iowa (KCCI) — Jim Cleere’s family has still not been able to bring his remains back to Iowa 20 years after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Cleere was in New York on a business trip as he watched the first plane hit the North Tower from his hotel room. He left two voicemails for his wife, his words remaining steady and calm.

“I just want to let you know I’m OK if you hear anything on the news,” Cleere said.

But in Iowa, his wife of 23 years started to panic.

“I was able to talk to him,” said Jean Cleere. “He calmed me down as he always did. We talked for a while after I got through crying. We talked for a while and he said, ‘I’m OK. I just need to find a way home.'”

But 20 years later, Jim Cleere still hasn’t come home.

“I still have hope that they will find him, identify him so that I will have something,” Jean Cleere said.

He was staying on the north end of the Marriot, however, people were escaping from the south end. A Newsweek article published later, helped Jean piece together what happened.

“The big man, injured leg, I thought that’s got to be Jim, and I thought that’s what prompted me to get ahold of this man Kevin Burns because he is in the article,” Jean Cleere said.

Jean Cleere would later meet Kevin Burns, the man who tried to get her husband a stretcher.

“He said, ‘I crossed over the street and I was heading to see if I could find any of that and someone yelled the tower is coming down. Run for your life.’ And he said, ‘I took off running north,'” Jean Cleere said.

Kevin survived. Jim did not.

It took Jean Cleere about two weeks to accept her husband was gone.

“I burst into tears and I said he is not coming home,” Jean Cleere said. “We had a hard time. That’s a hard thing to accept.”

Two decades later, she said it still feels like yesterday.

“If someone were to ask me what do I miss most about him, it would be his voice,” Jean Cleere said.

His voice is forever memorialized in voicemails he left for his wife, but also songs he recorded for fun. His wife now plays them to heal.

“To hear that voice is calming, peaceful,” Jean Cleere said. “That brings me a lot of peace.”

Jean Cleere and her daughter will be in New York City for the 9/11 Memorial Service. They also plan to visit the 9/11 museum where Jim’s voicemails will be a part of the display.

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