We remember those killed Oct. 9 in Erie through glimpses of how they lived.
Twila Tanner’s full-time job was raising her children. And she worried about what would happen to them if something happened to her.
“She always told me, ‘If anything ever happens to me, you’re my next of kin. You have to take care of things for me,’” Tanner’s daughter, Kathleen Al-Temimi, 27, said. “It wasn’t as if she was expecting something to happen. She just always told me that, ‘You’re my person if something happens.’”
Al-Temimi is handling her mother’s funeral arrangements and is taking in her youngest siblings, ages 16 and 17. A GoFundMe campaign launched by a friend aims to raise $10,000 to help provide for them. Twila Tanner, 51, was one of nine individuals killed in a mass shooting in Erie on Oct. 9.
“My mother was a loving, caring mother of five and grandmother of five. And she was my friend,” Al-Temimi said. “We would text each other faithfully every morning and every night. We were always talking. And her favorite topic was her grandchildren,” including Al-Temimi’s sons, ages 8 and 3.
Tanner also was generous and a loyal friend, Al-Temimi said.
“She would give a dollar if that was her last money, or her last Dr. Pepper to a stranger. It was her favorite drink.”
When friend Lora Roberts headed to the house at 722 Perry St. to pick up her niece on Oct. 9, Tanner agreed to go with her.
“She said, ‘I’m driving. Let’s go,’” Al-Temimi said.
The two women knew that there was some problem at the house, Al-Temimi said, “but nothing as bad as it was.”
Tanner’s last words to her 16-year-old daughter before she left were, “I love all my kids and all my grandkids.”
