Ielpi, Jonathan

Jonathan Ielpi, Sqd.288 Jonathan Lee Ielpi, 29, of Great Neck, was a New York City firefighter assigned to Squad 288 in Maspeth, Queens. He phoned his parents to let them know that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. “Jon, please be careful,” his father told him. His body was recovered in the stairwell of the south tower on Dec. 11, 2001. Jonathan Ielpi’s youngest son, Austin, was just 3 years old when his father was killed. Through stories he heard about his father over the years, Austin has begun to know the man who gave him life, said Ielpi’s mother, Anne Ielpi of Great Neck. “We’d go through a scrap book and he’d ask what was he like at 5, at 7, and at my age,” she said. Austin is now 13 and living with his mother, Yesenia Ielpi Major, and brother, Andrew, now 19, in Putney, Vt. The family moved there in 2002 and his mother later remarried. She and her new husband have a 4-year-old daughter. Anne Ielpi and her husband, Lee Ielpi, a retired FDNY firefighter and co-founder of the Tribute WTC Visitor Center, used to sit with Austin and talk to him about his father. Now, they chat on the phone. Jonathan Ielpi loved to fish. He loved to hunt. His dream was to purchase a tract of land so he could go hunting, his mother said. And, most of all, he loved the FDNY. These days, Ielpi’s parents, his three siblings and their children, continue to go camping, something they did since he was a child. His mother goes to his favorite spot at Mongaup Pond in Sullivan County and watches the bald eagles. She returned to the campground for the first time a few years after 9/11. “I was down by the beach. I said, ‘If you’re really here with us, you have to show me,’ ” his mother recalled. “A few minutes later an eagle flew down, right in front of me. That’s my way of knowing that he’s here with us.” – Chau Lam