The phone rang and I ran to the kitchen to answer it before anyone else could hoping it was my parents. By now I had been told that they were going from local hospital to local hospital looking for my brother who they had been told was merely injured. The voice on the phone said, “Is this the Zallan residence?” I answered, “Yes.” and they proceeded to tell me that they needed someone to come to the Los Angles Morgue to identify the remains of Bobby Zallan. I stared at the phone and couldn’t speak and just as I was about to drop the phone when my mother and father walked into the room and my father took the phone from my hand. He spoke quietly into the receiver and after he hung up walked into his bedroom and shut the door.

I never saw my father cry, but I know that he did; privately. My mom was sedated by a doctor who was a friend of ours and the President of our Temple, another friend, accompanied my father to the Morgue to make the identification.

A few days later in what now seems like a huge blurring of events, my brother was buried . There were hundreds of people at his funeral and many of them were State and local dignitaries. I was there in body but not in spirit. Somewhere I lost that day and the days that proceeded it. Somehow I lost the memories of all that occurred until many years later when I was interviewed by a reporter on the 50th anniversary of the plane crash. I’m still not sure that I remember everything that occurred or that I want too.

My parents are dead now and I have children and grandchildren of my own. I moved on and lived my life but that day is a part of everything I do and in some way it influences how I think and how I grew to become an adult.

Robert Zallan died on January 31st, 1957 at Pacoima Junior High School at age twelve, and part of my youth died with him.