ATLANTA — Monday marks 30 years since the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in 1996 that killed one woman and injured more than 100 more. A journalist had a heart attack shortly after and died.
Channel 2 Investigative Reporter Mark Winne spoke to the daughter of the woman killed in the attack, Alice Hawthorne.
Hawthorne’s daughter Fallon Stubbs says she still carries scars on her arm, thigh and finger left by shrapnel from the bombing.
Stubbs is now 44, the same age her mother was when she died.
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“The weight of not having her is so heavy,” she said. “It hurts still. I want to talk to her all the time. I want to be with her.”
She says her mother should be remembered for her life more than how she died.
Hawthorne was an entrepreneur, a community leader and a member of the Chamber of Commerce. She graduated from Albany State University at age 41.
“A woman that came from a small community in Douglasville, Georgia and migrated to Albany, Georgia, and was able to have a lasting impact even to this day,” Stubbs said.
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Hawthorne’s older daughter, Adoria Minor, says she would have been at the park with her mother and sister, but had to be at 911 dispatcher training.
Minor says she has prayed for Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph because she was raised to follow the Bible’s teachings of loving your enemy and pray for those who persecute you.
Stubbs says that for a long time, she was broken, but her faith and her pastor helped her mend.
“Oh man, God strengthens you. And He always has a ram in the bush. I can’t think of one thing I’ve went through in my life that He would not send someone when I was in need,” Stubbs said.
Both daughters say they are very proud of the community center in Douglasville named after their mother, but nothing can take the place of having her with them.
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