Archives|A NATION CHALLENGED: PORTRAITS OF GRIEF: THE VICTIMS; Civic-Minded Brothers, a Lifelong Quarterback, a Devout Vegetarian
A NATION CHALLENGED: PORTRAITS OF GRIEF: THE VICTIMS; Civic-Minded Brothers, a Lifelong Quarterback, a Devout Vegetarian
These sketches were written by PETER APPLEBOME, DAVID W. CHEN, ANTHONY DEPALMA, JENNIFER DUNNING, ELISSA GOOTMAN, AMY HARMON, JAN HOFFMAN, TINA KELLEY, N. R. KLEINFIELD, FRANK LITSKY, ANDY NEWMAN, JIM RUTENBERG, JOHN SCHWARTZ, DANIEL J. WAKIN, BARBARA WHITAKER and YILU ZHAO. DEC. 29, 2001
Here are glimpses of some of the victims of the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center.
JOHN VIGIANO
JOSEPH VIGIANO
Growing Up Right
Maybe there was something in the water.
For some reason, perhaps a dozen men who came of age during the 1970's and 80's in Deer Park, N.Y., developed an appetite for civic duty. They became New York City police officers and firefighters in their professional lives, and volunteer firefighters with Engine Company No. 2 in Deer Park in their personal ones. They called it the Deer Park Connection, and Firefighter John Vigiano, top, and Detective Joseph Vigiano, two of the tightest brothers you could ever find, were among the best-liked and most accomplished members.
Both followed the unwritten manual on growing up right in Deer Park, said their father, John Vigiano, a retired captain in the New York City Fire Department. They were active in sports. They became Eagle Scouts. They hatched pranks that were wicked in their creativity but gentle in their impact. ''They never embarrassed me,'' said Captain Vigiano. ''They were good fathers, good husbands and they were good men.
John Vigiano, at 36, was older by two years, though his brother never let him forget that he was also four inches shorter and maybe 30 pounds lighter, too. John was the quieter of the two, and spent as much time as possible with his two young daughters, his father said. He was a terrific hockey player (and rabid Rangers fan) and he would occasionally rent out an entire rink for his family, his brother's family and a few other friends.
Joseph Vigiano, who was known as Joey, loved to mug for the cameras and played lacrosse on the Police Department team, said his wife, Kathy, a fellow police officer. On the job, he was commended for his bravery: he survived being shot on three different occasions. At home, he taught his two boys how to build pinewood derby cars. Eventually, he was going to do the same with his youngest son, now 6 months old.
For now, the Vigianos are collecting anecdotes and tributes from friends and relatives on a new Web site, www.vigiano.com. Here, presumably, is one of the last stories: On the Sunday before Sept. 11, Kathy Vigiano returned home after the first game of the season in her soccer league, bruised and tired. She was prepared to make dinner, but instead, she saw that her husband had fixed prime rib, Caesar salad, mashed potatoes, and broccoli with cheese -- while watching their baby, too. All this from a guy who had previously insisted that he only knew how to make spaghetti sauce.
MICHAEL LYNCH
At 34, life was great for Michael Lynch, known to friends as Morty. He was always on the move -- running on the shore at the Jersey beach where he lived, doing chores while carrying his 1-year-old daughter, Caroline, in a backpack carrier, working out at a downtown Manhattan gym, dealing with corporate bonds and trusts at Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center or putting his 6 feet, 8 inches on a basketball court anywhere.
He played basketball at Manhattanville College in Purchase, N.Y., and earned a degree there in business and finance. During high school and college summers, he would fly to Ireland and play in a league in Dublin, not far from his father's family.
If clients wanted to mix basketball with business, they found the right broker. At 6:30 a.m. on Sept. 11, he and a client played basketball at Chelsea Piers. At 8:33 a.m., he was on the phone with his mother making plans for a birthday party a week later for his wife, Michelle, and a nephew and a niece. Later that morning, his mother kept calling his office number. No answer.
BRENDAN DOLAN
A Lifelong Quarterback
The prudent know well: never do business with friends. Brendan Dolan, however, only did business with friends. He merrily ran roughshod over that bright divide, saying, ''I don't have clients, I only have friends.''
He must have been doing something right: at 37, he was a senior vice president at Carr Futures, a successful energy broker who traveled worldwide for clients whom he easily befriended, with his trademark smile and wink.
In high school Mr. Dolan had been a quarterback, and he played that position for the rest of his life. He called the shots, gathering his siblings and parents together in vacation houses, throwing job opportunities at loyal buddies. He encouraged Carr brokers to move their young families to his town, Glen Rock, N.J. Who wants to live so close to the boss? They did. On summer weekends, the gang from work would hang out at Brendan and Stacey's, for a swim and a barbecue.
Joking, flipping burgers, jumping in the pool with Samantha, 2, and Sarah, 4, Mr. Dolan reveled in his life at home. He would tell his older brother Charles, who is still single: ''Forget business. You don't get it yet. Work will never bring you the kind of satisfaction you'll have from a family.''
RICK O'CONNOR
From Dirt to the Sky
There's a patch of land in upstate New York called Kendrew Corners, where Rick O'Connor's forebears scratched out a living as dirt farmers. In scarcely two generations, one of their ambitious descendants had climbed to the 100th floor of the World Trade Center as a senior vice president for risk management at Marsh & McLennan. To Rick O'Connor, that meant a lot, his brother Bill recalled.
Raised in rural Watertown, N.Y., Mr. O'Connor had an itch for adventure. In college, he drove a white '56 MG and went hang gliding on weekends. When his engineering-related jobs took him around the country, he explored new terrain hungrily. (He became a connoisseur of Texas barbecue.)
His restless, demanding mind was always cooking up schemes. As a teenager, he began swapping Boy Scout patches, an activity that became a business and a newsletter. Years later, he scoured flea markets for vintage postcards and sold them over the Internet. Enamored of the chocolate cake his wife, Lynne, made, he envisioned a cake business.
Despite his love of sassy cities, Mr. O'Connor, 49, settled in the small town of LaGrangeville, N.Y., believing it was a sweet, safe place to raise Matthew, Erin and Lauren. He commuted two hours each way between his touchstones: his children and his tower.
DENNIS CROSS
Running for a Memory
The race seemed more important than ever. For 18 years, on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Dennis Cross competed in the Turkey Trot, a 5-kilometer race held in Flushing Meadows, Queens, where firefighters ran for charity. This year he would be absent.
His wife, JoAnn, used to operate a fitness studio and induced him to run with her. But once the children arrived, she stopped running. That was 15 years ago.
Yet she felt an unshakable need to have a member of the Cross family in the Turkey Trot to honor her husband, a chief of Battalion 57 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. So she concluded she would be that Cross. And she would recruit additional firefighters to run, too, in honor of all the firefighters lost in the attack.
Chief Cross, 60, known as Captain Fearless, lived with his wife in Islip Terrace, N.Y. His favorite saying was, ''Take care of the men and the men will take care of you.'' Mrs. Cross was going to take care of his memory. She vowed she would finish this race and then begin an annual memorial run for her husband next April 27, the anniversary of the day they met.
For nine weeks, she trained, building up endurance. Race day came. She ran, as did her four children. She finished in 29 minutes. ''I thought I was going to do it in 45 minutes,'' she said. ''I was proud of myself.''
BILL MOSKAL
Fitness With Finance
Bill Moskal's business and personal lives were wrapped around sports and fitness. As a risk consultant for Marsh & McClennan, he made sure potential clients were insurable. In recent months, his projects included proposed new stadiums for the Cincinnati Reds baseball team and the Cincinnati Bengals football team.
At home in the Cleveland suburbs, he worked out daily. He would run with his dogs. At age 50, he boxed and wrestled once a week. He coached teams in every sport his 13-year-old son, Andy, played. He juggled business trips, including a Sept. 11 meeting at the World Trade Center's north tower, around family activities. As his wife, Lorraine, said, ''He was always available to us. He was truly the other half.
''He loved opera,'' his wife added. ''When we had a memorial service for him, I joked with the priest that he would have loved to have had Andrea Bocelli sing 'Ave Maria' because he adored him. There was a memorial service the next day at ground zero in New York. I couldn't make it, but I watched on television. Andrea Bocelli was there and sang 'Ave Maria.' Quite a coincidence.''
RICHARD M. KEANE
A Life Lived to Music
Here are pictures of Richard M. Keane: tending a garden in exceptionally grubby clothes while a boom box blasted out Orbison or Puccini; coming home from a business trip and telling his wife, Judy Keane, about the man he met on the plane; riding the commuter bus from his home off the village green of Wethersfield, Conn., to the Marsh & McLennan office in Hartford. (Mr. Keane, a senior vice president, was making a rare trip to Marsh's World Trade Center office for a meeting on Sept. 11.)
Mr. Keane, who exuded friendliness, loved to collect stories about people on his constant business travels. He believed in public transportation as a public good. He loved to garden, bringing to life 80 tomato plants this year and growing Connecticut field pumpkins every fall for the children in his extended family. ''Dick was always trying to foist vegetables off on people,'' Mrs. Keane said.
And his life was done to music. ''If I ask him to put up a picture for me, he can't do that until the music is going,'' she said. He was not the greatest singer, but sang in the choir of Sacred Heart Church, where he would shuttle several blind women on most Sundays.
A brother-in-law, Dr. Thomas C. Dolan, remembers Mr. Keane's constant coaching as the father of five sons, the marathons he started at age 40, the communal house paintings every year. ''The glass of water was always half-full for this guy,'' Dr. Dolan said.
VINCENT HALLORAN
5 Children, No Problem
A lot of firefighters have second jobs. Vincent Halloran had a nonpaying but extraordinarily rewarding second job in his children. He and his wife, Marie, had five of them (she is expecting a sixth on May 17, their wedding anniversary). Around the firehouse, some of his colleagues would say, ''I can hardly handle my two kids. How do you do it with five?''
He would just laugh. He did just fine with five. He had a cool demeanor that left him unruffled if one of the kids was crying while another was running his toy truck over his foot and one of the others had to eat, and eat immediately.
Lieutenant Halloran, 43, who was with Ladder Company 8 in TriBeCa and lived with Mrs. Halloran and the children in North Salem, N.Y., took it all in stride. He ran the house, as his wife put it, like a camp. There was a wide age range -- Jake, 15, Conor, 13, Aidan, 12, Kieran, 9, and Declan, 2 -- but he arranged activities for all of them.
They'd go fishing, boating, camping, swimming. Crowded as these activities could get, when Lieutenant Halloran took the children camping, he told each of them to invite a friend along. If that wasn't enough, during the summer, the Hallorans welcomed children from Ireland to stay with them, further swelling their ranks. ''What can I say,'' Mrs. Halloran said. ''He just loved kids.''
J. HOWARD BOULTON JR.
A Manly Gentleman
J. Howard Boulton Jr. was a gentleman with the common touch, an outsider who made others feel at home, a man who bound together two worlds -- Venezuela and Iceland -- with the greatest of ease.
Mr. Boulton, 29, grew up in Caracas, the son of a prominent Venezuelan family, and spent summers working on his father's cattle farm. He attended boarding school and college in the United States and settled in New York, taking a job at Eurobrokers. A colleague introduced him to Vigdis Ragnarsson, a New Yorker whose family came from Iceland. They married in 1998.
''He had this wonderful balance of being this manly strong man, who could deal with horses and cars equally, and on the other side this kind, gentlemanly touch,'' said his father-in-law, Kristjan Ragnarsson.
Mr. Boulton's other great loves were his 11-month-old son, Frederick Thomas, and Formula One racing. For Frederick, he would rush home for bath time and wake at 5 a.m. to play with him before work. He would get up just as early for Formula One broadcasts from Europe.
There is surely much grief among the farmhands in Venezuela. ''They watched him grow up, and were really fond of him,'' Mrs. Boulton said. ''They are beautifully simple people but I'm sure they understand what happened, and the injustice of it.''
RON MILSTEIN
Cats and Calligraphy
In a most unusual way, Ron Milstein combined a love of animals and a love of calligraphy. The 54-year-old bachelor from Queens would take pro-animal sayings from famous people, inscribe them on cards and give the cards as gifts.
One quote carried this observation from Leonardo da Vinci: ''The smallest feline is a masterpiece.''
Another was from Abraham Lincoln: ''I care little for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.''
And this from Mark Twain: ''If man could be crossed with a cat, it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.''
Mr. Milstein was a temporary administrative worker at Fiduciary Trust at 2 World Trade Center. His cousin, Douglas Mann, said Mr. Milstein was an intelligent person who preferred short-term jobs, but work was not the main thing about him.
''He was very concerned about animal welfare,'' Mr. Mann said. ''He was a vegetarian. He would not buy leather clothes or other animal products. He loved to come to baby-sit our cats. He wrote poetry. He had strong opinions, but if he liked you he really liked you.''
The Joys of Fatherhood
When James Waring's first child, Jessica, was born 14 years ago his sister, Mary Jane Edgar, wondered what kind of a dad he would be.
Her brother, after all, once bought 30 bottles of Charlie perfume to give to all his girlfriends and never outgrew his love of the Animals, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks and all the other bands he played on his white Fender Stratocaster in high school bands. Might he find fatherhood a bit dull?
Not a chance. Mr. Waring, the 49-year-old director of security for Cantor Fitzgerald, did everything his way, growing up in New York rooting for the White Sox and the Packers.
But he found his greatest joy in being with his four daughters. His wife, Maria, worked at night, so he was home at 5:15 every afternoon taking the girls to dance lessons or playing softball with them. He took them to the beach every summer and had just taught the youngest, 5-year-old Jamie, to swim.
Mr. Waring took his daughters to 13 Yankee games last summer and had one more coming up, Sept. 12, against the White Sox, where he planned to show up as usual in his White Sox jacket and cap, calling out a cheery, ''How you doing, babe?'' to everyone he met. He had the tickets with him at work on Sept. 11.
WILLIAM TSELEPIS JR.
'A Graceful Soul'
William Tselepis Jr. grew up in a family that stressed loyalty, and he applied that value to just about everything he did. Mr. Tselepis, 33, a Chicago native, never wavered in his devotion to all of its sports teams. His best friend and frequent golfing partner was his older brother, Peter.
He married his college sweetheart. He followed his older brother to New York and became a foreign exchange broker. He worked for almost 10 years at Cantor Fitzgerald, mainly trading foreign exchange options. He spent all of his free time on his wife, Mary, and daughter, Katie, now 3 1/2. And without a doubt, his older brother said, Mr. Tselepis, known as Billy, would have doted on the son he never knew, Will, born on Oct. 5.
A few weeks ago, a group of Mr. Tselepis's Kappa Sigma fraternity brothers gave Peter Tselepis a scrapbook with pictures, notes and other ephemera related to their buddy Billy, and asked that the book be turned over to Mr. Tselepis's children ''so that they would know their father better,'' Peter Tselepis said.
Everyone, he added, said that they were still trying to cope with Mr. Tselepis's absence.
''The predominant description from men and women was that Billy was gentle, caring and generally always good to be around. People wanted to be around Billy. He was just a graceful soul.''
OBDULIO RUIZ-DIAZ
Obdulio Ruiz-Diaz talked often of mis sueos -- ''my dreams.'' He had come to the United States from Paraguay and said that he wanted a good job, a family and a good home for them.
He dedicated his life to realizing all three goals, said his wife, Rosa Villalba. He brought her to the United States from Paraguay and they had three children: Vanessa, 10, Pamela, 8, and Bryan, 6. Trained as an architect, he found work that he enjoyed as a draftsman and project manager at a New York company, Bronx Builders. And, at 44, he found the house of his dreams, in Valley Stream, N.Y.; they closed the deal on Sept. 6.
''Todos mis sueos se estan haciendo realidad,'' he said. ''All of my dreams are coming true.''
With the help of family and friends, Ms. Villalba and her children moved into the house on Sept. 14, but without Mr. Ruiz-Diaz. They celebrated Christmas with the family of his best friend, Manuel DaMota, who was working with him on a project at Windows on the World on Sept. 11. The families set aside two empty chairs in their memory. ''Everybody had wet eyes that night,'' Ms. Villalba said.
RICHARD RODRIGUEZ
Like Hitting the Jackpot
It can't be said with certainty that Richard Rodriguez was the only Puerto Rican man ever to parade around in a skirt and enjoy it. But his family is certain that no one could have reveled in doing so more than he did.
A member of the Port Authority Police Department and a drummer in its Emerald Society Pipes and Drums, he was as proud of being a police officer as he was of his Latin heritage. And he didn't mind putting on a kilt, even if it was rather unusual for someone of his background to do so. ''He used to say he was breaking barriers,'' said his wife, Cindy.
Before joining the force, Officer Rodriguez went to school for technical drafting -- and hated it. But the more time he spent with the volunteer first-aid squad in Perth Amboy, N.J., where he grew up, the more his career interests shifted to public service.
When the Port Authority police offered him a position eight years ago, he told everyone he had won the lottery. He was first assigned to Newark Airport, where he trained for special duty protecting the president when Air Force One landed there.
Three years ago he started teaching at the Port Authority Police Academy, which was in Sea Girt until it moved to Jersey City in August. When the planes hit on Sept. 11, Officer Rodriguez and the other officers rushed through the Holland Tunnel.
The Port Authority Emerald Society, missing one drummer, played at his memorial service.
STEVEN STRAUSS
Contentment by the Surf
A bench on the boardwalk in Long Beach, N.Y., now has Steven Strauss's name on it.
It is only steps away from the building where Mr. Strauss's daughter, Melanie, lives, and a Frisbee toss from the spot on the beach where she announced her engagement at a family picnic over the Labor Day weekend. Mr. Strauss brought Champagne to celebrate.
The bench faces the endless ocean that Mr. Strauss never tired of, no matter how many vacations he spent listening to the surf. ''He could sit on the beach for 100 days straight and still want more,'' said Robert Chaikin, a close friend who often vacationed with Mr. Strauss and his family. ''He loved to fish. He loved to boat. He loved anything that had to do with the water.''
Mr. Strauss, 51, worked at the Morgan Stanley Dean Witter offices in the World Trade Center as an electrical foreman for the Petrocelli Electric Company. ''This is a business where people don't usually get close,'' said Mr. Chaikin, also an electrician. ''But when this happened, everybody in the electric business called Steve's house and offered to help out.''
Mr. Strauss had planned to move someday from Fresh Meadows, N.Y., to somewhere nearer the water, perhaps even Long Beach, where the bench with his name on it also bears a plaque: ''In the celebration of your life, let the ocean embrace you.''
SALVATORE T. PAPASSO
Never Too Old for Toys
Think tax investigator, and if you do not envision a man who relishes birthdays and spaghetti with the zeal of a child, perhaps you did not know Salvatore T. Papasso.
Mr. Papasso worked as a special investigator for the revenue crimes bureau of the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, on the 86th floor of 2 World Trade Center.
He liked bringing white-collar criminals to justice, but he also drew pleasure from simpler things. Take the Lego pirate-ship set he received as a gift after complaining, in his late 20's, that people no longer gave him toys. ''He actually put it together,'' marveled Vincent Papasso, one of his brothers (and the bearer of the gift).
Mr. Papasso, 34, and his wife, Christine, celebrated one another's birthdays for an entire month, with multiple cakes and dinners out. They married on May 12, 2000, then marked their union on the 12th of each month, sometimes nudging one another awake after midnight to be the first to wish a happy anniversary. ''He celebrated life,'' Mrs. Papasso said. ''My outlook on everything changed with him.''
TIMOTHY M. O'BRIEN
Timothy M. O'Brien was a comfortingly confident man who smiled with his eyes, and this is why, when Lisa D'Arpino first saw him, she thought, ''This is it.''
Mr. O'Brien interviewed Ms. D'Arpino for her first job, at a Wall Street securities firm. ''I didn't hear a word he said -- I was just thinking, 'O.K., this is my husband,' '' said the woman who in 1994 became Mrs. O'Brien.
The oldest of seven children, Mr. O'Brien gave his siblings career advice and taught his children -- John, who turns 7 today, Maddie, 5, and Jacie, 4 -- to dribble a basketball and to swim.
His wife called him Captain Catholic because he regularly attended church and refused to curse. ''He would spell it if he had to, and he would only spell the first two letters,'' Mrs. O'Brien said. ''If he was really mad, it would be, 'Man alive!' We laughed about it.''
A partner at Cantor Fitzgerald, Mr. O'Brien, 40, would say ''Stay here'' when work intruded on a telephone conversation with a relative. ''It just gave you a feeling of, 'I'm here and I'm going to come back to you,''' Mr. O'Brien's brother Sean said. ''It was just a nice feeling.''
JEAN ROGR
Finding Joy in the Sky
You can call just about anybody a people person. People who were close to Jean Rogr say they know this. But what can they do? It is, they say, the best way to describe her.
And it is why Ms. Rogr, who was 24, became a flight attendant two years ago after attending Penn State.
''After four and a half years of college, she wanted to be a flight attendant,'' said her father, Tom Rogr. ''She enjoyed traveling and meeting people, from children to 90-year-old adults; she loved them all.''
One person was especially important -- her boyfriend, Kevin Dowd, a Boston-area stock broker whom she had been dating for about two years. The night before Ms. Rogr reported for duty on American Airlines' Flight 11 to Los Angeles she celebrated Mr. Dowd's 30th birthday, just the two of them strolling through Boston.
That night Ms. Rogr gave Mr. Dowd a card that, he said, summed up her general life philosophy. ''She wished me to have love, happiness and peace of mind because really, everything else just comes and goes,'' Mr. Dowd said. Despite a late night, the following morning ''she went to work with a smile on her face,'' Mr. Dowd said. ''She was happy as could be.''
SEAN B. FEGAN
Nurturing Strong Roots
Sean B. Fegan eventually gave up on the lettuce he planted in his family's garden in Blauvelt in Rockland County, where he visited for Sunday dinner every week. ''His scallions were his biggest success,'' Mr. Fegan's sister Anne Marie said; the lettuce was one of his rare defeats.
At 34, Mr. Fegan was a senior equity trader and an assistant vice president at Fred Alger Management Inc. He was meticulous about the way he looked. ''He ran and worked out,'' Ms. Fegan said. ''He had really beautiful blue eyes.'' Mr. Fegan also had to get the details right, whether in long, funny stories he loved to tell or when quizzing his parents, Colette and Peter, and Anne Marie and his other siblings, Catherine and Peter Jr., about how their lives were going.
But Mr. Fegan also liked to party in Manhattan, where he lived, to go to Jets games and to travel to Europe, often with his girlfriend, Jenny Hebeler. A favorite destination was County Cavan in Ireland, where his family came from and still maintains a home. He wanted the family to have dual citizenship and had applied for it for himself. ''He was very proud of his heritage,'' Ms. Fegan said. ''He always made the most of life.''
ROBERT C. KENNEDY
A Proud Father
Robert C. Kennedy loved to laugh, mostly at silly things. His laugh was so huge and his face grew so red that people sometimes worried he was having a heart attack. ''When we were younger,'' said his daughter Meredith Andrews, ''we were so embarrassed.'' But Mr. Kennedy was also the father who made her and her older sister, Catherine Miller, feel like women rather than girls. ''He was proud of our relationship and the fact that he was able to teach us so young that you can be friends with your parents,'' Ms. Miller said.
''His daughters were his hope,'' Maureen Kennedy, his wife of 32 years, said. ''He took them to work before it was the thing to do.'' He was also a quiet, steady mentor to women at Marsh & McLennan, where he worked.
Mr. Kennedy, who was 55 and lived in Toms River, N.J., was also a tease. ''He loved his view from the World Trade Center,'' Mrs. Kennedy said. ''He would tease that he could see Pennsylvania on a clear day. When we drove to Staten Island, he'd look back across the bridge and say he had left the lights on in his office.''
CHARLIE WATERS
A Father and Son's Bond
Charlie Waters left a wife, three children and his parents in Bethpage on Long Island. But Mr. Waters, 44, a vice president at Cantor Fitzgerald, got to take the memory of something very precious with him.
It was a letter from his 14-year-old son, also Charlie. Mr. Waters loved his 11-year-old twin daughters, Jaclyn and Allison, very much, but the bond between father and son was special, said Mr. Waters's wife, Barbara. Big Charlie turned little Charlie on to the Grateful Dead. Son turned father on to Metallica. Charlie the son took up the guitar, and when his band, Dormant Virus, played last year, he wore his father's old Grateful Dead T-shirt beneath his Giants jersey.
Last spring, when the family debated where young Charlie should go to high school, the boy gave his father a letter. ''Dear Dad,'' it read. ''I feel like you would do anything just to make me happy for a split second, and you do. I just wish I got to spend more time with you. I want to thank you because I know that whatever high school I would have chosen you would have been behind me 100 percent. You're also the easiest person I know to talk to. That's what I think I love about you the most.''
Charlie Waters cried when he read that letter.
MICHAEL C. OPPERMAN
A Hard-Working Man
The annals of workaholism will hold a special place for Michael C. Opperman. It is one thing to leave the house at 3 a.m., as Mr. Opperman, a senior vice president at Aon Insurance, routinely did, so that he could get a head start on his own work before people started coming to him for help.
It is another thing to try to keep working after a jet hits the building across the plaza. Around 9 a.m. on Sept. 11, when a colleague said urgently, ''I'm going now, Mike, are you coming?'' Michael Opperman replied, ''O.K. I've just got a few loose ends to tie up here.''
Deborah Opperman said that her husband, 45, who grew up the son of a truck driver in the Bronx and who never got further than his associate's degree in college, was driven by a fear that his accomplishments in life could be taken away.
''I think he always had in the back of his head that he could lose it,'' she said from their home in Selden on Long Island. ''He'd say, 'My God, Debbie, there are so many people out there that are so educated.' ''
Mr. Opperman left an 18-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter. His son, Mike Jr., had just started school at Wagner College in Staten Island. ''They're good kids, thank God for that,'' Ms. Opperman said. ''Except I sort of see my husband's drive in my son. That sort of frightens me.''
DANNY SONG
A Brother's Love
Danny Song was a sociable guy, a backslapping bond broker at Cantor Fitzgerald and a former captain of his college football team who liked hanging out with his clients and spent a lot of time with his girlfriend, Mihyon Pak. But much more than your average 34-year-old, Mr. Song, who immigrated from South Korea as a child, was dedicated to keeping his nuclear family together.
He lived two blocks from his sister in TriBeCa. He made it financially possible for the family to buy a house in West Orange, N.J., over the summer so that his parents could finally move out from Wisconsin, where he was raised. And he was particularly close to his brother, Frank, 37.
The brothers had lived together in New York since 1990. When Danny Song first moved to the city and Frank Song was working as a bond trader, Frank Song carried him through the lean years. When Frank Song decided he wanted to become an actor, his brother returned the favor. The brothers would do anything for each another. ''He's my soul mate,'' Frank Song said, ''my partner in life.'' Now, Frank Song has quit acting and taken on a new role: Danny's job as a bond broker, at a different firm but with many of the same clients, who encouraged him to step into his brother's shoes. ''It's kind of a way to remain close to my brother,'' he said.
EDWIN J. GRAF III
His Last Mountain
When he was hugging the side of a mountain was when he felt most capable and in control. Transport Edwin J. Graf III to the Grand Tetons or Yosemite, and he was instantly at peace. ''It was the most therapeutic thing he could imagine,'' said Bill Eydt, a long-time friend and his frequent climbing partner.
In his work life, noise and commotion would build up, and his answer was to climb. Last February, on the coldest weekend of the winter, he felt the need and traveled to the Green Mountains in Vermont and camped out for two nights. He came back renewed.
Mr. Graf, 48, had been a skilled mountain climber since college, and perhaps it was apt that he also worked high up, as a vice president at Cantor Fitzgerald on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center.
Naturally, friends worried about him hanging from pitons, but not sitting at the office. ''We always feared something would happen on a mountain,'' said Polly Perkins, a friend since high school. ''He did fall off a mountain. It just happened to be a mountain in New York City. That's not what we expected.''
Mr. Graf was divorced and lived in Rowayton, Conn. He had three children, Kristin, 15, Tyler, 14, and Wesley, 12. Not long ago, he took the two boys to a Go Vertical gym so they, too, could scale a mountain. Now when Tyler sees the face of a mountain, he calls out to his dad, because he knows that's where his dad's spirit is.
ROBERT P. DEVITT JR.
A Life Lived to Its Fullest
At Kutztown University in Pennsylvania people may not have heard of Robert P. Devitt Jr., but everybody knew Psycho. Rugby player and life of the party, Mr. Devitt had been known to go so far as to eat goldfish and drink beer out of his shoes to keep revelers entertained. ''There was nothing he would not do to keep a party going,'' said his brother, Timothy Devitt.
Although rugby took a back seat to golf after he left college, Mr. Devitt, 36, was always adventurous -- skydiving, motorcycling and kayaking. He liked to quote his father, who would say, ''If you want to learn how to play poker, play it for money.''
And that's how he lived his life, whether it was cooking for friends, hitting the links or working as project manager for Cantor Fitzgerald with an office on the 103rd floor of the World Trade Center. He commuted three hours a day, said his fiance, Nicole LeMaster. ''There was nowhere else he would rather be.''
JUSTIN J. McCARTHY
Competitive and Caring
Justin J. McCarthy and his friend Bill Marmo never won the shark-fishing tournament that they entered every summer, but it didn't matter. Mr. McCarthy just liked being on Mr. Marmo's boat off Freeport on Long Island, where he grew up, drinking a few Heinekens and hanging out.
That is not to say that Mr. McCarthy was not competitive. A trader at Cantor Fitzgerald, he was ambitious and determined to advance in his career. He was known for his quick comebacks and sharp sense of humor. But Mr. McCarthy had a creative, dreamy side, too. In his spare time he carved sculptures out of wood and came up with ideas for inventions.
Mr. McCarthy, who died in the World Trade Center attack one week before his 30th birthday, had reunited with his high school girlfriend, Megan Cromer, last year. Ms. Cromer had a 9-month-old son from a previous relationship and was overcome by the kindness Mr. McCarthy showed him.
''You could never find a man that comes into your life to be so good to your own child,'' Ms. Cromer said.
ALAN W. FRIEDLANDER
Bikes, Photos and Family
Alan W. Friedlander was a family man with a handful of passions: bicycling, planning vacations and photography. He bought his wife, Helen, a bicycle, and the second weekend in September they headed from their home in Yorktown Heights, up the Westchester County Trail to Baldwin Place. When their daughter, Laura, was living abroad, they visited her, and he enjoyed studying books and maps whenever the family traveled.
The couple met at the Gristede's on Second Avenue at 68th Street, where he stocked shelves and she worked the checkout. They were married for 28 years, with a son, Steven, 26, and Laura, 22. Mr. Friedlander, 52, a senior vice president at Aon Corporation, had recently enjoyed taking pictures of the figure skating competitions his wife liked to attend. ''He really did everything well, and he was a patient guy,'' she said, ''so he took a gazillion shots.'' His four best pictures are displayed in a spare bedroom.
Mrs. Friedlander wanted to add one last thing: ''My favorite time of day was 10 til 7 at night, because that's when he came home.''
BENJAMIN JAMES WALKER
'I Want Daddy'
After her father died on Sept. 11, adults kept telling Samantha Walker, 4, that her daddy, Benjamin James Walker, would always be in her heart. ''She said, 'I don't want Daddy to be in my heart. I want Daddy to be in my house,''' said Laura Walker, her mother.
One night when Samantha was curling up in bed with her mother, she broke into tears. Daddy had promised to teach her to play soccer once she turned 5. Her brothers, Henry, 9, and Christopher, 7, assured her that they would.
But the boys have their moments, too. In November, after Henry scored a 63-yard touchdown in a football game in Rockland County, where they live, Henry came off the field in tears, because Daddy wasn't there to watch him.
Their father, who was 41, worked as an insurance broker for Marsh & McLennan and doubled as a local soccer league coach on weekends. ''Ben made pancakes every Saturday morning,'' Mrs. Walker said. ''Now they have to make do with mine, and mine are not as good.''
The Confirmed Dead
Following are the names of the people most recently confirmed to have died in the World Trade Center disaster, according to the New York City medical examiner's office, which said the victims' families had been notified.
CAUFIELD, Robert
MARTINI, Paul
PRINCIOTTA, Vincent
SANTORO, Mario
SCHARDT, John
STONE, Lonny Jay
A version of this article appears in print on December 29, 2001, on Page B00008 of the National edition with the headline: A NATION CHALLENGED: PORTRAITS OF GRIEF: THE VICTIMS; Civic-Minded Brothers, a Lifelong Quarterback, a Devout Vegetarian. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe