name misspelled on memorial; family alerts the media

[Enrique]

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44494256/ns/today-today_news/t/victims-name-wrong-memorial/

(...)

"I couldn't believe it," said Janice Hart, whose brother, Jeffrey Schreier, died while working in the mail room at brokerage firm Cantor Fitzgerald.


(...)


Hart and her husband, David Hart, noticed the error Sunday after locating Schreier's name among the thousands of victims.

"As I was looking at the name, all of a sudden, I realized this name was not quite spelled correctly," said David Hart.

Schreier's first name was misspelled. The inscription reads "Jeffery" rather than "Jeffrey."

"You feel as though Jeffrey's soul is now looking down and saying, 'Can't you get my name right?'" added David Hart.

"This is the only place we could go to have some solace, and to see his name engraved incorrectly was very distressing to us," said Janice Hart.

(...)

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Something similar.

Someone I've known since kindergarten died on 9/11. His name is Jon Vandevander (Van-DEE-vander). Every 9/11 memorial program where the names are read aloud, his name is read "Vander Vander".

How hard is it to get the name right? I'd have a gimme for the first year, but ten? Especially last Sunday . . . .

[hlthe2b]

3. When my father died, we returned to the small town in which he had grown up

and where his extended family remained well known. The minister was young and fairly newly arrived--so had never met my father. Despite meeting with him prior to the service to give details on my father's life, to my horror, he went through the entire service continually mispronouncing my father's name.

I never said anything, but it was so damned jarring, that to this day, it still causes me considerable pain. I can still hear him stumbling over my father's name (which was not a difficult nor particularly unusual one, by any means).

It may seem like a small thing, but it makes one hell of a difference. sigh...

[trud]

4. did you contact them

or were they magically supposed to know about the error.

That reminds me of software trouble reports I got decades ago when I was working in tech support. One would sail in, this glitch has been here through three versions. So, did you report it then? No, God was supposed to come down from Heaven and tell us about it.

[no_hypocrisy]

7. I didn't contact them. I left it to his family.

I don't know if they did or whether they threw up their hands.

On edit: You are right. Something should be said regardless of the instigator. I just wrote the City Council President Christine Quinn and explicitly explained the situation and asked for her help.

[MineralMan]

2. I'm sure that's very frustrating for them.

A typo. If it were me, I'd let it go, though.

[Enrique]

6. get them to fix it, that makes sense

calling the Today Show? I don't see a purpose in that.

[idiotgardener]

9. Next up: the lawsuit

I can't believe they contacted the media, but even worse, the media treated it like news.

[catabryna]

5. Ah, that's nothing...

imagine your husband's tombstone mentioning that he was a son, a husband, but completely omitting the fact that he was a father, of a little 3 year old boy. Happened to us... you get over it!

eta: The tombstone wasn't my responsibility, obviously.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

8. They misspelled Judith Resnik's name, the astronaut, on her memorial.

She died in the Challenger accident.