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Thirty-five years after she lost her sister and brother-in-law in the Pan Am 103 bombing, Martha Alderman Boyer still places roses at Syracuse University’s Place of Remembrance​. She’s done it almost every year since the couple died.

“Paula loved roses and Glenn would give her red roses with white baby’s breath, so I always took two up,” Boyer said.

A circular stone bench with an engraving commemorates Paula and Glenn Bouckley, a couple from Clay, New York, who were killed in the bombing on their flight home from a family wedding in England. The engraving faces the Wall of Remembrance with the names of the 35 SU students who were killed in the bombing.

The engraving reads, “Paula Alderman-Bouckley and Glenn Bouckley, Syracuse Area residents, also died in the air disaster over Lockerbie,” according to an archive from the Syracuse Library Pan Am Flight 103 Archives.

This year’s Remembrance Scholars are the first to represent non-SU students in their activities, following a decision to remove the Coker twins because of antisemitic materials discovered last year in their archives. Lucio Maffei, a senior studying political philosophy and ethics, is representing the 224 other passengers who died.

“I think we have some responsibility to all of those victims and their families to be sure that they know they’re remembered the same way we’re remembering … our students who passed,” Maffei said.

Paula and Glenn were the only victims from the Syracuse area. Paula grew up in New York state, while Glenn was originally from West Yorkshire, England. Paula — the second youngest of the family’s four daughters — was an alumna of Cornell University, where she received a bachelor’s degree in human development and family studies.

Paula met Glenn through a fan club for the band Queen, and they became pen pals. Boyer said Paula met Glenn in person the second time she traveled to England, where they got along “beautifully.” The two were married in October 1986 in England and lived there for just over a year and a half. After the death of the Alderman’s father, they moved back to the Syracuse area, according to the archives.

The couple returned to England in December 1988 for Chris Bouckley, Glenn’s brother’s, wedding. Glenn served as Chris Bouckley’s best man, and he and Paula met up with the newlyweds on their honeymoon trip.

“The wedding went off tremendously well. We were even more happy that Paula could come along too, there were fears that she may not be able to travel with him. It was perfect,” Chris Bouckley wrote in a letter to Georgia Nucci, the mother of an SU victim, according to the archives.

The plane crashed around 7 p.m. on Dec. 21, 1988. A bomb in the cargo hold exploded, killing all 259 passengers and 11 people on the ground after the crash. Later that week, Boyer’s husband, Bradley, traveled to Lockerbie and identified Paula’s body.

Boyer said it’s still difficult to remember that moment, so she tries not to dwell on it. She said that the Syracuse and SU communities have been of great support since the bombing.

“I’m very proud of how we continue to remember those that we lost,” said Kelly Rodoski, senior communications manager at SU and Lockerbie-Syracuse Scholars liaison. “Not just our students, but everyone who was lost on the plane.”

When the Alderman family heard about SU’s construction of the memorial, Paula’s mother, Marion Alderman, and her sisters wrote letters to then-Chancellor Melvin Eggers. Boyer remembers her family saying it would be nice for Paula and Glenn to be included because several of her relatives, including her grandfather and cousins, graduated from the university.

“​​Paula and Glenn were the only Syracusians to die in the disaster. I think this should be taken into consideration,” Alderman wrote in her letter to Eggers.

The Place of Remembrance was dedicated on April 22, 1990, and underwent renovations in 2012. Every year, SU hosts a candlelight vigil and a rose-laying ceremony at the memorial.

“It was a very tough thing for this community. Not only for our Syracuse University community, but for the greater community, so it was really wonderful that (Paula and Glenn) were honored in this way,” Rodoski said.

Lucio said that the expansion of Remembrance Week to include more passengers has been a good initiative. He said the university should still remember that the bombing killed more than just the 35 SU students.

“Obviously, 35 lives is such a massive tragedy, but I mean, the event was 270 lives, which is such an enormous, massive loss,” Lucio said.

While Boyer said it’s important for the university to remember the students, her family will never forget Glenn and Paula.

“It’s for us to remember as a family, and, of course, we’ll never forget,” Boyer said.

Published on October 19, 2023 at 1:27 am

Contact Kendall: kaluther@syr.edu