1991 painting touted as vision of 9/11 attack

ROSEBURG, Ore. – Ghostly figures run across the roof of a skyscraper, smoke and flames reflected in the building’s windows, contrasting with the brilliant blue sky.

The people, who have no faces or color, clamber on top of each other in their haste to get away from a man brandishing a knife. A large American flag stands in the midst of the pale figures, the red and white stripes smudging together as if the flag were drenched in a heavy rain.

The scene is from a watercolor called “Saving Freedom” painted by Mary Jane Jordan in 1991.

Caryl Jordan Baum, 67, believes her mother’s painting prophetically depicted the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. She hopes to have the painting made into a postage stamp that commemorates the 10th anniversary of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Jordan Baum believes the painting’s significance makes a strong case for it being put on a stamp.

Prints of the painting have been sold to people all over the country, with former President George W. Bush being the most famous owner, she said.

She recently learned the painting will be part of the president’s archives, soon to be housed on the campus of Southern Methodist University, in Dallas.

“It makes a fine addition to the collection,” states a letter signed by Bush. “Thanks again to you and Mrs. Mary Jane Jordan for sharing it with me.”

Jordan Baum found the painting while looking through her mother’s artwork in her garage shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. Immediately struck by the way it eerily resembled the terrorist attacks, she rushed over to her mother’s nursing home to find out more about it.

“She saw the whole thing before,” Jordan Baum said. “She had a vision, and she didn’t know what it was. It scared her so she put (the painting) away.”

Jordan Baum also noted how the painting contrasted with her mother’s other watercolors, which mostly depicted colorful landscapes and flowers.

“They were beautiful scenes, and they were nothing like this,” she said.

After the painting was displayed at Linus Oakes retirement village in Roseburg, where Jordan lived with her husband, Irving, for 14 years, many people requested prints, Jordan Baum said.

Per her mother’s request, all proceeds from prints and cards depicting the painting went to charity. People who saw the painting also frequently remarked that it would make a striking stamp.

“I want to keep her legacy alive,” Jordan Baum said. “If this becomes a postage stamp, it would be such an honor.”

Jordan died at 87 in 2002, but not before finding out that President Bush received her painting, Jordan Baum said.

“It made her very happy,” she said. “At least she lived long enough to know.”