Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 13

5 JLPrincess of Wiles 1961-1997 PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1997 A-13 WHAT PEOPLE -ARE SAYING about the death World mourns Diana PRINCESS FROM PAGE A-'l Deborah Stein Levy: walked every step with her down the aisle. Fascination with Princess Diana as great in death as it was in life ed with the royal family last night. Fayed was buried in the southern English town of Woking last nigh! police said. A police spokesman said: "The service is being conducted npwat a cemetery in Woking. The family have insisted that it is private anjl we are respecting their wishes." Outside Buckingham; F3l4fc4 thousands milled in shock, some with flowers picked from neighboring parks.

Long lines of mourners, many seeming dazed, filed past' Diana's home, Kensington Palace, trailing tears, flowers and anguish. "Diana, you are the queen'pfour hearts," read one card, echoinglhe princess herself, who once saidfhat was her greatest ambition' Yesterday, traditional serve cracked. Comfort-seeking strangers embraced in Diata' Jjon-or. Buckingham Palace opened a condolence page on its WftYsAte; No corner of the kingdtira.was untouched, from the heart En1 gland to the hills of Walesjiivhere Diana was held in particularttffec-tion. Flags flew at half-staffullhe' British scrapped its scheduled programming, offering hymns and tows In its stead.

xir. A hastily arranged service Sf. Paul's Cathedral, where "Charles and Diana married in 2,000 mourners from all Harrods, London's famous depart1 ment store, the company's" grgeh: and-gold flag, always flanked the flags of world nations, wavetf alone at half-staff in a gentle breeze on a sad and bewildering Britain. "I feel like everyone else nfliis country today. I am utterly devastated," said Blair, fighting acH tears.

"She was the people prin cess, and that is how she' will remain in our hearts and our mejjno; ries forever." Diana reportedly never regained consciousness after the crash, which came as the couple, Tiaving dined at the Hotel Ritz ownedby the Fayed family, were apparently, en route to one of the family's apartments in the city. Despite extensive surgery )Jwe could not revive her," Dr. Bruno Riou, anesthesiologist atLa Pitie-Salpetriere hospital. He said Diana had quickly gone into cardiac arrest and that'ewctors had tried to save her for at least twp hours with internal and external cardiac massage. Buckingham Palace said Charles informed William and Harry of their mother's death before dawn yesterday at Balmoral, where the' royal family traditionally spends the summer holidays.

would kill her in the end. But not even I could imagine that they would take such a direct hand in her death as seems to be the case," Diana's brother, Charles Spencer, said in a statement he read to reporters in South Africa, where he lives. French police were questioning seven photographers who were chasing the car carrying Diana and Fayed, scion of Egyptian billionaire Mohammed Fayed, when it crashed in a tunnel near the River Seine in Paris. Amid the tumult, the princess' body was returned in eerie silence to a Royal Air Force base north of London. Not a public word was spoken as an honor guard unloaded the casket draped in the red-and-gold Royal Standard and slowly marched it to a waiting hearse in the late afternoon sunshine.

Prince Charles, Diana's former husband and Britain's future king, stood in bare-headed attention alongside Prime Minister Tony Blair as mute symbols of a country grappling to accept Diana's passing. Earlier, Charles had flown to Paris to collect the body. Charles, accompanied by Diana's two sisters, went to the hospital with French President Jacques Chirac to thank doctors there for their efforts in trying to save the princess. In Scotland, locals and tourists silently lined narrow lanes outside Balmoral Castle, where Queen Elizabeth II consoled her teen-age grandsons, Prince William and Prince Harry. Diana was to have returned to London yesterday to be with her sons in the last few days of their summer vacation.

Instead, the boys attended services at a small country church with their father and the black-clad queen and her husband, Prince Philip. Officials at Buckingham Palace conferred with government ministers yesterday to arrange the princess' funeral later this week. Details will be announced today, the palace said. To be answered is whether Diana, not technically a member of the royal family since her divorce, should nevertheless receive a state funeral. It was a decision that rest Annie O'NeillPost-Gazette nent in the world.

American women wonder what it would be like never having to cook, clean or pay for anything. What's it like to own five palaces. "Then you've got Diana, this young, beautiful woman with style and class. She swoops in on a royal family that was, well, a frumpy buncn until she arrived on the scene. "Now, we have the fairy tale failing to end happily twice, first when she got divorced and now that she's died." It all makes for riveting copy, she said.

Jean Hunter, a Duquesne University history professor who specializes in British and women's history, said the roots of royal fascination run long and deep in the United States. "We Americans are just interested in the British royal family, and we have been for years. We have celebrity but no royalty, so it's something strange to us. Yet, it's so accessible to us because of our other cultural similarities," she said as she watched an MSNBC rerun of the royal wedding yesterday. of Princess Diana "I think it's very tragic.

Why would we have to lose her, of all the people trying to do good in trie world? For all her faults, she tried to do good, and.now we lost her I don tninK tnose reporters showlilbe able to hound peo-plejnthe public eye. Why should-they be able to hound thertv so much and harass therrlTI just wonder if this will make any difference and dbatig'e the way they treat thOe'eople." Ruth Diffenderfer, 48, I'i" Jl' win, schoolteacher was to me, the Jac-qaeling Kennedy of my time. I will forever love her I un- dferSfodd her frustration with peopje.having great expecta-ttons-of you, the way you the way you say I think she wanted to havea time wnen she could jusfMve some fun without everyDoay trying to capture a moment of it. It was irresponsible to drive so fast to get awy from the cameras, but it's something that hap penedand unfortunately, we lostner if they don't bury herthe way she deserves, the royals-will never deserve to be called royals again." Klmberly Davis, 38, Hornewood, youth services caseworker always very tragic when someone dies early in life and hasn't been able to complete their life in a meaningful way. It strikes me extremely sad that she was a ydting1 woman who seemed to getting her life bacftjqgether The idea of the paparazzi taking pho-tosiwrfore police arrived ab solutely horrified me.

That was disgusting." Eve Picker, 42, Friend-m LJShlp. housing developer mini really stunned by it, and my heart goes out to those 1wo young boys that are going to be deprived of thejfrtrnpther. They were talk-jngon television about wheWer or not she is given a state. funeral, and before all of thosejother Brits in the royal family, she deserves one. She did more for humankind of them put together.

I feel if Charles were kind tQfierhShe still would have beep with him, and this wouldftave never happened. In part, I hold him responsible fof this." Plum, homemaker "I think it's a shame be-causeshe sort of exemplifies the '90s woman, particularly wber) Jooking at the British government. She just lived her Jife as an equal to everyone 6fse, not following any direct rules of society. She was being a human being, and.l think that was respect-ablerregardless of being shameful or not I give her 9 Jof credit for doing her thino Barrv Stein. 29.

Law- delivery driver ''If'salways bothered me abo'utthe paparazzi chasing peqple. If there's a stalking law for normal people, it stop them from what they're doing. Diana was justso beautiful, and very giving, and she seemed to be a very determined woman to have survived in that way, her m'arnage, the public, all the attention. I don't know if I could do it." -i- Francine Krlsher, 41, ast McKeesport, bowling al-ley desk clerk strikes me is these p.hQgraphers seem like flies on dead meat. At the same timer the reason they're paid is there seems to be a tremendous market for people wanting to see their photographs, so it's the opposite side of the same coin.

If people didn't care about seeing these people's private JlvQh value of the photo- graphs would drop and these find something else to do." Eddie Shaw, 48, Squirrel Hill, schoolteacher By Karen Kane Post-Gazette Staff Writer Her smiling visage anchored the front page of almost every major newspaper yesterday and her name was on the lips of newscasters, near and far. Prayers for her soul were offered at Sunday church services and reflections on her star-styled life and untimely death were discussed in coffee shops and backyards. President Clinton and world leaders around the globe voiced shock and sorrow at her demise. If one thing is certain about Princess Diana's death early yesterday, it's that we care whether "we" are presidents or poets, football fans or wannabe-royalty. And if there are any doubts that Pittsburghers fit the profile, hear Gary Hinton, who was manning the busy counter at Smithfield News Downtown yesterday, where Post-Gazettes had sold out by 8 a.m.: "On a Sunday morning in Pittsburgh, opening day for the Steelers, nobody was talking football.

Usually, that's all you hear. Today, it's all Princess Di." At the Barnes Noble Bookstore in Cranberry, all books on Princess Diana sold out yesterday, more were ordered and names were put on waiting lists. "It was phenomenal. People are so shocked. That's all they're talking about in the coffee shop," said store manager Dionne Flinn.

The question is: Why? Perhaps Deborah Stein Levy, a Munhall homemaker and self-described "Diana Watcher," knows. She spent yesterday's wee hours Web collects By Jim White Post-Gazette Staff Writer When Bill Johnson, of tiny Montrose, in the northeast corner of Pennsylvania, heard about the death of Princess Diana early Sunday morning, his first impulse was to express his sadness on a World Wide Web page. "My wife is from Scotland, he said, "and my children are British subjects. Diana was one of the world's greatest women." So Johnson, the webmaster of Susquehanna Online, a local news service, quickly constructed a Web page expressing his family's grief, and asked others to do the same. Then he posted his page on the Web.

"It is unbelievable. I have thousands of e-mails from all over the world," Johnson said, "and they keep coming." In the few moments he spoke on the phone, he said he was watching nearly 100 more e-mail tributes arrive. A glance at the first few messages in his "guest book" reveals condolences from Ireland, Iowa, Canada, Malaysia and Pakistan. Their words are different, but their themes are identical: OFF -nn run i nun with pencil to paper, recalling in poetry her vicanous enjoyment that morning in 1981 when Lady Di wed Prince Charles. like a princess-in-waiting, I arose that morning to see Diana marry her Prince Charming I walked every step with her down the aisle." Shari Roberts understands.

The 35-year-old Penn State University professor who studies the relationship of the media to society and who also roused herself from sleep those many years ago to watch the royal exchange of vows contends it's largely a woman thing. "It's not exclusively female, but American women have fanned the flames of Diana fascination. It's our love of Cinderella and Prince Charming, of dreams coming true. And then there's the fact that this bigger-than-life princess lived a life that parallels ours in many ways. She married, she had children, she dealt with an eating disorder, with mother-in-law problems, with divorce, with fitting in a career outside her home.

We can identify with her and live vicariously through her," Roberts theorized. Carol Wallace, managing editor of People Magazine in New York, tapped into Diana Fascination time and again. With 43 covers, Princess Diana was People's No. 1 cover girl. Elizabeth Taylor was a distant No.

2, with 14 covers. Wallace isn't perplexed at the American public's interest in the Princess of Wales. "I don't think it's all that mysterious. Anytime a woman marries a prince, there's fascination and the Brits' monarchy is the most promi mail tributes Ahmad Mubarak of Karachi, Pakistan, writes: "She will be long remembered by the world of sufferers. She was innocent and a lost soul." From Glenda Sicat, of Toronto: "Princess Diana was one of a kind, a big shining star amid all other stars." A quick search of the Web turns up the Princess Diana Conspiracy Memorial Page, hinting darkly at a British role in her death, and Princess Diana Conspiracy newsgroup, whose participants seemed mostly concerned with how the newsgroup was created so quickly.

The British Monarchy Official Web Site was hard to get to, presumably very busy, but its address is www.royal.gov.uk, and it has its own condolences page. Other Web pages with information and links to other sites include: Johnson's personal page, plus tribute: www.susquehannacounty.com PrincessDiana A page with multiple links: the Unofficial British Royal Family Pages at www.etoile.demon.co.uk Royal.html Or just type "Princess Diana" into any search engine on the Web. COIT's proven air duct cleaning process reduces odors, dust, and allergens, whilejmproving airflow up to 30. Our professional care and personal attention to detail assures you the finest results possible; and we guarantee it. on COIT Air Duct Cleaning COIT experience You Can Trust A MOTOROLA 550 CASH BACK ON ALL ANALOG 5 Pocket Cellular Phone 20-number memory 60-minute talk time Weighs only 8.4 oz.

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