Ride with the 40

Flight 93 Biographies

Please select a name at the right to view that hero's biography.

Christian Adams

Deputy director, German Wine Institute and director of its export department, 37, Biebelsheim, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany; Wife, Silke; son, Lukas, 7; daughter, Theresa, 5; He was flying to San Francisco for a wine-tasting event to showcase the 2000 vintages.

The first time folks saw Christian Adams toting heavy cases or uncorking bottles at refined wine-tasting events, they didn't always realize that the youthful, reserved German was an important fellow.

"One of the most impressive things about Christian was his willingness to dive in and do whatever needed to be done," said Carol Sullivan, director of the German Wine Information Bureau in New York. "No job was ever beneath him."

But through hard work and skillful networking, Adams, 37, of Biebelsheim, Germany, had risen high in the world of wine production and promotion. As deputy director of the German Wine Institute and director of its export department, he was responsible for promoting one of his country's most-prized products.

"He was the hub in the wheel," said Sullivan, who represented the institute and worked closely with Adams for a dozen years. "There was no one more interested in wine."

Sullivan met Adams in 1989 at a German Wine Society convention in Los Angeles, while he was still a student working on a marketing degree at the University of California, Davis. He'd already obtained a degree in winemaking and grape-growing from a German university and was determined to build a career around wine.

"One of the things that impressed us most was his depth of knowledge," Sullivan said. Wine Institute officials were so taken by the young man that, later that year, they asked him to help with a symposium on Riesling grapes. There, he met the director of the institute, who hired him to work in its export department. He became deputy director in 1995.

Married and the father of two children, Adams also ran the Weingut Schnell winery in Biebelsheim, which was owned by the parents of his wife, Silke. He worked hard to stay in good physical shape and enjoyed playing and watching volleyball and basketball games. Although he was quiet, he enjoyed sharing a good joke with friends and colleagues.

"Representing the various interests of an entire industry can be a political minefield, but he had the respect of so many people," Sullivan said. "His success came from his thoughtful, quiet manner. He never made rash decisions and everything he did was always well-considered."

Lorraine Bay

Lorraine Grace Bay was born in Philadelphia on July 20, 1943 in the midst of World War II. She was a bright star whose presence gave family and friends something positive and beautiful to talk about during those fateful and uncertain days.

She was a typical teenager of the 1950's enjoying every moment of those growing years. Thanksgiving was always a favorite holiday at her house: football, food and loving family were the order of the day. Lorraine graduated from Neshaminy High School in 1961 where she was the Captain of the Color Guard and subsequently joined a community Senior Drum and Bugle Corps. As part of the Color Guard, she enjoyed the camaraderie for two years. Lorraine was working in the office of the Reedman Car Dealership in Langhorne, PA when the lure of the vast skies of United Airlines beckoned in 1964.

Lorraine trained at Chicago's O'Hare Airport and then began her 37 year career as a Flight Attendant. Humor was always part of Lorraine's life, even if the joke was on her. On her first short flight, her plane landed before she had even finished serving lunch. In her helpful, but inexperienced way she had taken the time to unwrap each sandwich rather than just giving it to the passenger. She soon learned to efficiently complete her tasks in the allotted time, but never lost her delightful way of always looking at life through the prism of laughter. It was always fun talking to Lorraine about her flights and the many interesting and sometimes famous people who passed through her life. Even if the trip was miserable, her stories always ended with a smile.

Lorraine and Erich Bay married in 1979 and lived in East Windsor, NJ. Their early morning work schedules had them at times passing like ships in the night, but they always took the time for each other before leaving for her flights. She was the family organizer, planning events and making sure the appropriate card for every birthday or anniversary was mailed.

She carried that ability to her professional career as well. Lorraine had style and grace that showed through in everything she did. She watched over her fellow flight attendants, making sure doctor's appointments were kept, even sending hats to friends undergoing chemotherapy. Her gifts and cards were unique, personal and always early. Two ill colleagues received cards postmarked September 11, 2001 indicating that they were mailed that fateful morning. She loved to share her experience with younger flight attendants to help them along the way and connected with passengers on every level whether young or old or traveling on business or pleasure.

There wasn't a kinder, more considerate person on the face of the earth. Lorraine had a beautiful smile, twinkling eyes and a hearty hug and her love will stay with all who knew her.

Todd Beamer

Todd Beamer was born November 24, 1968 in Flushing, Michigan to parents David and Peggy Beamer. The second of three children, Todd brought joy to his parents and sisters. When Todd was six, the family relocated to Poughkeepsie, NY. Two years later, they moved to Wheaton, Illinois where they would settle until Todd's senior year of high school.

Throughout his growing-up years, Todd excelled at athletics and enjoyed competition. He played soccer and basketball well, but baseball was his passion. After graduating from Los Gatos High School, Todd attended Fresno State with hopes of making their Division I team, but injuries sustained in a car accident kept that from happening. Todd decided to return to the Chicago area to pursue a degree at Wheaton College.

Todd met his wife Lisa while they were working towards their undergraduate degrees at Wheaton. The couple began dating after graduation and married three years later, after Todd had earned his MBA from DePaul University. The couple settled in the area of Princeton, NJ, where Todd started his career with Oracle Corporation. Though he thrived in the high-pressure corporate environment, Todd also maintained his focus on family and service to others. Together, he and Lisa were active in church, where they taught a high-school Sunday school class for years.

Todd and Lisa's first child, David, was born in 1998. Drew followed in 2000. Morgan, who carries Todd's middle name, was born in January 2002.

Alan Beaven

Environmental lawyer, 48, Oakland, California; Wife, Kimi; daughter, Sonali, 5; sons Chris, 18, John, 21; he was going to San Francisco to try a case before leaving on a sabbatical to India.

Alan Beaven did not fit the stereotype of a successful attorney. Dressed casually in his San Francisco law office, the New Zealand native shunned his computer, preferring to dot the monitor with messages on sticky notes.

He wrote briefs in longhand, a throwback to his days as a barrister in England. He preferred to keep his own filing system, which consisted of dozens of accordion folders laid out on the floor.

And he liked to get his hands dirty. When taking on oil companies or alleged polluters of California's waterways, Beaven thought nothing of rolling up his sleeves and going to the source for information, whether it was an abandoned gold mine, a hog farm, or downstream from a cement plant.

He drove an old car, allowed his hair to grow long, saved his suits for trials, refused to display his diplomas, and didn't carry a cell phone. Instead of holding forth at length in a courtroom, he enjoyed allowing his opponents to dig themselves into a hole of their own making, after which he would deliver a pithy coup de grace when his turn came to speak.

And even though he couldn't keep his office plants alive, Beaven enjoyed protecting the environment and considered suing polluters both a moral duty and an intellectual challenge.

He was so successful that the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance said he had practically worked himself out of a job.

It was just as well. Beaven, his wife, Kimi, and their daughter, Sonali, 5, were preparing for a year-long sabbatical to do volunteer work for the SYDA Foundation in Bombay.

In the last decade, Beaven had become heavily involved with Eastern philosophy, meditating, practicing yoga and spending a month in an ashram in India.

Helping to ground Beaven's spiritual center was his family. It was no surprise that he was devoted to Sonali and sons Chris, 18, and John, 21, from a previous marriage; wherever he went, Beaven acquired a fan club of children in the neighborhood.

During a typical morning in his Oakland home, Beaven would drink a cup of Twinings Earl Gray tea before being ambushed by Sonali and a heap of books that she wanted him to read before work. She would climb on his lap and they would snuggle.

"I'll never say no to a book," he would tell her.

Mark Bingham

Owner, The Bingham Group, 31, San Francisco, Calif.; mother, Alice Hoglan, father, Jerry Bingham, step-mother, Karen Bingham; after a weekend in New York City, he was returning home.

Gerald "Mark" Bingham was constantly on the move. In New York, New Orleans, San Francisco or Pamplona, Spain—he visited friends, met with clients of his public relations firm or just traveled around the world in search of good times.

His exploits were the stuff of legend among his friends. The time he dressed as a transvestite lumberjack; the hours he spent in jail for tackling the Stanford University mascot at a college football game; being thrown out of New Zealand for a bar scuffle; rescuing a small girl who had wandered into traffic.

He seemed a walking contradiction: gay, yet a staunch Republican; accepting, yet willing to fight bigots; a peacemaker, yet someone who once single-handedly foiled two muggers.

Friends said Bingham was always smiling, always animated. As a young boy he lived on a houseboat three blocks from Miami's Orange Bowl. On Sundays when the Dolphins were in town, he and his mother would let the crowd roar wash over them.

The two of them moved to Monterey, Calif. in the late 1970s. While his mother was out looking for work, the 9-year-old Bingham would go to the Monterey wharf after school and fish for their dinner.

After he grew up, he used his size—6 feet, 5 inches, 220 pounds—to his advantage by playing rugby. His mother, Alice Hoglan, said he first played the bruising game in high school, and she believed his personality blossomed from it. Bingham went on to play at the University of California at Berkeley, and was a member of two national championship teams in the early 1990s.

Timing was a strength. He opened his public relations firm on the cusp of the high-tech growth in the mid-1990s. His mother marveled that he paid three times as much in taxes as she earned.

In July, he and several friends traveled to Pamplona to run with the bulls. They dressed in the traditional white, with red sashes. The first day was so uneventful, they returned for a second running. Bingham was scooped up on the horns of a bull, tossed to the ground and stomped. He loved showing off the hoof print on the back of his left leg.

"He didn't fit into anyone's mold," Hoglan said. "He was a force for good in the world. He just lived his life as if there were no tomorrow. I guess there's a lot of wisdom in that, looking at what happened."

Deora Bodley

Junior, Santa Clara University, 20, San Diego, Calif.; mother, Deborah Borza; father, Derrill Bodley; half-sister, Murial. She was returning home after visiting friends in New Jersey and Connecticut.

In Ursula K. LeGuin's classic science fiction novel, The Lathe of Heaven, the main character's dreams are capable of changing reality.

It was one of Deora Bodley's favorite books, possibly because the idea of creating a world without wars, disease and overpopulation was one of her goals.

"She was always thinking big and going after big game," said Chris Schuck, who taught Bodley as chairman of the English department at La Jolla Country Day School near San Diego, Calif.

As an 11-year-old, she wrote in one of her journals, "People ask who, what, when, where, how and why. I ask peace."

Bodley, was a junior at Santa Clara University, where she majored in psychology. An insightful writer who was fluent in French, she coordinated college volunteers in a literacy program at a nearby elementary school.

Kathy Almazol, principal at St. Clare Catholic Elementary, said Bodley had "a phenomenal ability to work with people," whether it was the children she read to, her peer volunteers or the school administrators and teachers.

"We have 68 kids who had a personal association with Deora," Almazol said.

Bodley wanted to be a child psychologist because she saw the problems children faced growing up.

Growing up with her mother in San Diego—her parents divorced when she was 2—Deora, which is Gallic for "tears," always seemed older than her age. She traveled with her father to Switzerland when she was just 3 1/2 and often flew to the East Coast.

Schuck remembered reading one of her middle school homework papers and being struck by her honesty.

"You'd read her work and say, 'Am I that honest and truthful with myself?' " he said.

As a high school student, she had enthusiastically traveled to area high schools to discuss sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS with her peers. She also volunteered with the Special Olympics and a local animal shelter.

"She was just burning way too bright," said her mother, Deborah Borza.

She recently found a journal entry written by her daughter when she was 13.

"If I would just live for the moment," the entry went, "and make every moment count, maybe the future would work out. Maybe that moment would be a doorway to the future."

Sandy Bradshaw

United Airlines flight attendant, 38, Greensboro, N.C.; husband, Phil; daughter, Alexandria, 3; son, Nathan, 1; stepdaughter, Shenan, 16. She was a flight attendant on Flight 93.

Growing up on her parents' 90-acre farm near Climax, N.C., Sandy Waugh Bradshaw dreamed of being a flight attendant. But the reality was that she and her four siblings had to tend the more than 30,000 chickens being raised for a poultry producer.

But Pat and John Waugh didn't hold their children back. At age 16, they were allowed to find another job.

That's exactly what Bradshaw did, taking a job at McDonald's until her 1981 high-school graduation, and then a series of secretarial positions during the next nine years.

An outgoing, competitive person, she once jumped in her car late at night to chase people who had stolen her brother's off-road three-wheeler. She got the license plate and police later retrieved the three-wheeler.

Bradshaw kept her eyes on her goal, and in March 1990 joined US Airways as a flight attendant. Five months later, she was laid off during cutbacks. But beginning in October, when she married US Airways pilot Phil Bradshaw, her luck changed. By December of that year, she was working for United Airlines.

While family vacations in North Carolina had rarely ventured beyond the state's borders, the Bradshaws saw the world: Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, the Caribbean and most of the United States.

"Every place we went we had a blast," Phil Bradshaw said. "My wife loved to travel. That's why we waited so long to have kids."

Alexandria was born in 1998 and Nathan last year, and Sandy, 38, cut her flights to the bare minimum—two two-day trips a month from Newark to San Francisco or to Los Angeles.

"She always wanted to be here for the kids," her husband said.

Yet she loved the day she had between return flights since it gave her a chance to relax, do her nails and catch up on her magazine reading before returning home to Greensboro, N.C. and her husband, children and flower garden.

Earlier this month, the nearly 3-year-old Alexandria once again asked her father at bedtime where mommy was.

"Mommy's not coming home tonight is she?" she asked.

"No," he answered. "Mommy was in an airplane crash and died."

He said she gasped and then said, "Daddy, we'll have to be strong for each other."

Marion Britton

Assistant regional director, U.S. Census Bureau, New York City, 53, Brooklyn, N.Y.; brother, Paul; half-brother, John. She and Waleska Martinez were traveling together to a computer operations conference in San Francisco.

Bearing cards, carefully chosen gifts and delectable pastries, Marion R. Britton never missed a birthday or anniversary and never failed to leave loved ones with full bellies and smiling faces.

"My son used to say she was his fairy godmother," said her brother, the Rev. Paul Britton of Huntington Station, N.Y. "On any holiday, Marion was like a bag lady, pulling out gifts that were precious and something delicious—Italian or German pastries or New York cheesecakes she'd bring along."

Even after developing borderline diabetes, "she loved to watch other people enjoying the things she could not."

To satisfy nephew Wren Britton's taste in punk music, she haunted tiny Manhattan shops until she found new releases by obscure groups he loved. At the U.S. Census Bureau's regional office in Manhattan, where she was assistant director, she ordered in lunch for the office on busy days.

In her early days with the bureau, she'd drop in on homes to ask government-sanctioned questions, then return to drop off packets of food or clothing for struggling families.

Britton grew up in Queens and worked as an accountant before becoming an enumerator, or door-to-door questioner, for the 1980 census. She loved getting paid to talk to people, and census officials hired her permanently after noting her ability to draw out information. Over the next 21 years, she rose to the regional office's second-highest spot.

Outside the office, she socialized with friends at breakfast gatherings and joined a dining group that roamed the city in search of gourmet dinners. She chose her stylish clothes with care and lined her cozy apartment with eclectic furniture, teddy bears and dolls.

A workaholic, Britton could be blunt, and people who didn't know her well didn't always welcome her frankness, said her boss, Regional Director Lester A. Farthing. But her refusal to back down from a conviction often prompted co-workers "to take another look and to find a better way to do things."

"She could use stinging language and she'd let you know if she thought you were wrong. She could be bitchy—I was the brunt of it for many years," her brother recalled. "But she did it for your own good. She was kind-hearted and truthful, and you always knew where you stood."

Thomas Burnett, Jr.

Senior vice president and chief operating officer, Thoratec Corp., 38, San Ramon, Calif.; wife, Deena; daughters, Madison, 5, Halley, 5, Anna Clare, 3. He was returning home after a weekend in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and a business meeting in New Jersey.

As a young man, Tom Burnett used to think that if he could ever earn $25,000 a year and have a company car, he would be king of the world.

Years later, as senior vice president and chief operating officer of Thoratec Corp., known nationally for its creation of heart assist pumps, he was successful beyond his earlier dreams. Burnett would tell his wife, Deena, that he couldn't believe his achievements.

Articulate and competitive, a motivator who could talk a person into almost anything, Burnett was a born salesman. While he couldn't talk his mother into letting him fish from the edge of a dock as a 3-year-old, he did persuade her to let him sit in the middle of it and drop his line through the cracks.

In his hometown of Bloomington in 1980, he quarterbacked a high school team with a modicum of talent to the state championship game. A 1985 University of Minnesota graduate, he parlayed an acquaintance's introduction into a job in California selling intravenous pumps. By 1989, he'd met Deena in Atlanta, where she'd just completed flight-attendant training for Delta Airlines.

Their first date was at an Applebee's where they spent six hours talking. She knew she would marry him after he unscrewed the light bulb above the table and tossed it over his shoulder, shattering it on the floor.

"I'm trying to create a mood here," he told her, "and this light's not helping."

They married in April 1992 after a "romance in the air." Since Burnett traveled all week, the couple would meet in airports, or Deena would leave notes for him on planes. They agreed they were as comfortable in planes as they were in cars. But in 1995, when Deena was expecting, she stopped flying.

Burnett entered fatherhood on his own terms. He liked pushing their three girls around the neighborhood in the stroller, but only while smoking a cigar. Diapers, baths and feeding were on an as-needed basis.

For all his traveling, Burnett was cautious. Long wanting to parachute, he backed out when the chance came, worrying about his family. And when the two of them left for a vacation, he insisted they take separate planes so an accident wouldn't leave the children parentless.

William Cashman

Ironworker and Army Veteran, 60, West New York, N.J.; wife, Margaret. He was traveling with friend Patrick Driscoll to hike in Yosemite National Park.

When William Cashman first took up karate about 10 years ago, he thrilled to the idea that he could break a wooden board with his hands.

"Let's see," challenged his wife, Margaret.

Cashman, tall and wiry like a marathon runner, asked her to brace herself against the dining room wall and hold out the board.

KA-CHOP! Cashman smashed the piece of wood, showering little splinters over his wife. Margaret was so impressed that she invited a friend over and asked that he do it again.

For about three years, Cashman studied karate, working his way up to a red belt before a stomach operation forced him to quit.

The martial arts fit his tough-guy guy background. Born and raised in New York City's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, Cashman worked with his hands like his brother, a fellow ironworker, and father, a construction worker. Cashman served in the early 1960s as a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division, known as the Screaming Eagles.

But his personality belied that aggressive image. Cashman taught welding at night at the Metal Lathers Local 46 school, part of his philosophy of giving back to the union and helping young apprentices.

He was the kind of guy who preferred to listen to a joke rather than tell one. He didn't curse—at least not strongly. And he was patient; welding demanded it.

He also was the only one of Daniel Belardinelli's uncles to show up at his nephew's painting exhibits.

Although Cashman was not an artsy sophisticate, he wasn't afraid of venturing into the unknown. Cashman displayed an interest in his family and wanted to support it. He was the first one to retain his nephew's services when Belardinelli earned his law degree.

"For someone who was a blue-collar guy, he was a very interested person," Belardinelli said.

Early to bed and early to rise, Cashman was quiet and set in his ways. He paid cash for everything, including cars and property, spoke so quietly he could hardly be heard and drove slowly on the highway.

Although he had to give up the martial arts, Cashman could still hike, and he took frequent day trips to Harriman State Park near his home in West New York, N.J. He had already made two visits out west with old friend Patrick Driscoll.

Georgine Corrigan

Antiques dealer, 55, Honolulu, Hawaii; Daughter, Laura Brough. She was returning home after an antiques-buying trip to New Jersey.

As a single mom in 1976 needing to support her infant daughter, Georgine Rose Corrigan turned to what she knew best: schmoozing and hard work.

She parlayed a brief client transaction that year while working as a bank teller in her native Ohio into a job with the Bank of Hawaii. Setting up home in a one-bedroom apartment in Honolulu with her then-6-year-old daughter, Corrigan hit the ground running.

Juggling the bank job with a second one as a paid babysitter at a Hilton hotel, she later managed beauty salons, designed logos for a textile firm, painted Hawaiian floral prints on Christmas ornaments and drew silhouettes. Her daughter, Laura Brough, recalls her mother working such long hours that on Sundays, while the exhausted Corrigan slept, Brough would walk herself to church.

Seven years ago, Corrigan entered the perfect marriage—with antiques. It was natural for her; her parents had collected antiques and her brother, Robert, owned several cars from the early 1900s.

Smiling and making friends as she scoured markets and sales, she picked up pieces for her growing number of clients who collected European, Oriental and Hawaiian antiques. Corrigan sold her wares at shows in Hawaii and on the mainland.

She also bought and sold vintage jewelry and clothes, letters from the early 1900s and anything having to do with roses, because Rose was her middle name. For several years she owned her own antiques shop.

In 1998, Corrigan moved in with her daughter's family. Mother and daughter shared an interest in art collecting, but it was being a devoted grandmother to her 6- and 4-year-old grandsons that gave Corrigan her greatest joy.

"When she was home, she was here to eat, sleep and play with the kids," Brough said.

Her mother had a low pain threshold—"She would cry at a paper cut," Brough said—and she often told her daughter that she felt like she'd suffered numerous disappointments in life.

But, her mother would add while enduring those difficult times: "God is teaching me a lesson now. I don't know what it is, but I'm sure we'll see the light at the end of the tunnel."

Patricia Cushing

Retired service representative for New Jersey Bell, 69, Bayonne, N.J.; sons, Thomas, John, David; daughters Alicia, Pegeen. She was traveling to San Francisco on vacation with sister-in-law Jane Folger.

Patricia Cushing always put others ahead of herself, starting with her husband, Thomas.

After meeting on a blind date, they married less than a year later in 1958. She uprooted her life in Maryland for him, quitting a job at the local phone company because the liquor store he ran was in New Jersey.

When Cushing's father-in-law died, she became the caretaker for his wife, taking her into the couple's Bayonne home. She did the same for her husband's aunt.

Growing up in the post-Depression generation, Cushing saw how hard her father worked. He labored for an electric company during the day, ate dinner and went to night school for accounting.

Cushing followed that ethic at home. She raised five children, achieving fame among them for her meatloaf, and then went back to work to help make ends meet when her youngest son, David, was about 9.

She returned to her roots and got a job with New Jersey Bell Telephone. In 1999, after 20 years, Cushing retired from her position as a service representative.

Although not a college graduate—she was studying to become a teacher before she got married—she had a sophisticated sensibility.

She loved music, and became a season ticket holder at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City after her husband died in 1988. She accompanied her sister-in-law, Jane Folger, to every type of cultural event.

At home, Cushing kept things proper and tidy. She never let jeans or sweatpants degrade her dresser drawers. Her sons mercilessly teased her about the dinner-table rules she imposed—sit straight and chew with your mouth closed—and her obsession with cleaning. If they broke those rules, they were the target of Cushing's evil eye.

Cushing believed in maintaining her dignity during adversity and never letting anyone see her down. The words "woe is me" never crossed her lips. If her son, David, was upset about his job, she would advise him to focus on the good in his life.

It was that core strength that served her well over the last few years in supporting Folger, who had gone through a divorce and the death of two sons. She was a balm for Folger's edgier personality.

Jason Dahl

Captain, United Airlines, 43, Denver, Colo.; wife, Sandy; son, Matthew, 15. He was the captain of the crew of Flight 93 and had moved up his schedule in order to celebrate his wedding anniversary.

Jason Dahl learned how to fly before he learned how to drive a car. Relatives say from the time Dahl could talk, all he wanted to do was fly.

At 13, the San Jose, Calif., native joined the Civil Air Patrol and earned a scholarship for flying lessons. He was flying solo before he was 16, and while working at the municipal airport he did his best to wrangle flight time, including flying photographers over the area.

Immediately following his graduation from San Jose State University in 1980 with a degree in aeronautical engineering, he became a corporate pilot. By 1984, he was a pilot with United Airlines.

Popular with his fellow pilots, Dahl endured good-natured teasing about his height—he stood a shade under 5 feet, 9 inches. He and another pilot used to stand on tiptoe for photos to make themselves appear taller.

Flying was Dahl's love but family was his life. He rose rapidly through United's pilot ranks, and in 1993 became a "standards" pilot for training and testing other pilots. The job allowed him to spend more time at home with his wife, Sandy, and son, Matthew, 15.

Dahl spent nearly three years remodeling the family home in Denver, doing the wiring, plumbing and dry wall with help from a brother-in-law. He found time to take his family snorkeling and scuba diving, and they vacationed in Australia and New Zealand.

He would trade flights to be home for his son's band activities, to help at his Cub and Boy Scout meetings and to coach his Little League team.

When Matt was in sixth grade and taking a class trip to Washington, D.C., Dahl arranged to be the pilot because he felt there was no one in the world who could fly a plane as safely as he could, especially one carrying his son.

He was particularly proud that Matt was 6 feet tall, bursting through what his father called "the Dahl barrier".

Dahl's fifth wedding anniversary was Friday, Sept. 14. To surprise his wife he planned to buy her a baby grand piano, a manicure and pedicure, and fix dinner for her and eight couples. On Sunday, the couple would leave for a three-day trip to London.

In order to get that time off, Dahl and his wife agreed he would fly on Sept. 11-13.

Colleen Fraser

Executive director, Progressive Center for Independent Living; vice chairwoman of the New Jersey Developmental Disabilities Council, 51, Elizabeth, N.J.; sister, Christine Fraser; brother, Bruce James Fraser; two stepsisters, six stepbrothers. She was on her way to a grant-writing seminar in Reno, Nev.

Whether gazing on an oddly formed hunk of driftwood or a person with disabilities, Colleen L. Fraser always saw the possibilities.

Relatives and friends collected wood or metal objects, knowing Fraser would convert them into art. She worked the same magic fordisabled people, transforming once-limited existences into independent, productive lives.

Like her father and younger sister, Fraser was born with a bone condition that necessitated multiple surgeries and kept her height at 4 feet, 6 inches. But her father convinced his three children and eight stepchildren they could accomplish anything, and Fraser found further assurance in the tiny copy of the Constitution she carried in her wallet.

"She loved the idea that all people are created equal," said Ethan B. Ellis, executive director of the New Jersey Developmental Disabilities Council, of which Fraser was vice chairwoman and past chairwoman. "This woman believed the most important thing she could do was to convince [others] of the humanity of people with disabilities."

In numerous jobs and board positions, Fraser lobbied on local, state and national levels for services for the disabled. Her advocacy was geared toward helping disabled people live and work in communities rather than in institutions.

Artistic and theatrical, Fraser studded her ears with pierced earrings and spiked her red hair in a crew cut. She created striking ensembles by mixing conservative jackets, jeans or bohemian prints, then adding scarves or one-of-a-kind brooches. A favorite brooch—a cluster of people of all shapes and sizes—symbolized her ideal world.

Unable to find walking canes she needed in correct proportion to her height, she carved them herself. Later, she branched out to create intricate Madonnas and figurines. She loved independent and horror films, gothic novels and fine literature. For friends' birthdays, she baked sugar cookies in quirky shapes, then laughed in glee at the responses.

"My sister used to joke about being on some FBI list because she protested against the Vietnam War," said her sister and housemate, Christine Fraser. "Now the FBI is coming to our house on her behalf. She would find that very funny."

Deborah Welsh

United Airlines flight attendant, 49, New York City, N.Y.; husband, Patrick. As the purser, she made announcements and directed other attendants on Flight 93.

Flight attendant Deborah Anne Jacobs Welsh couldn't stand to see anyone hungry or hurting on the streets of Hell's Kitchen, her tough New York City neighborhood.

Countless times, she went out to walk Dylan, her Dalmation, only to come back and grab a pair of her husband Patrick's trousers or gloves for a shivering vagrant she'd befriended.

Relatives dubbed Debbie Welsh, 49, "The Little Apostle of the Airlines" after discovering that she often left Newark airport with a stack of unused airline meals. After she rode home on the bus, she'd hand it out to homeless folks between her bus stop and apartment.

But soft-hearted didn't mean soft-willed.

Welsh "didn't take any crap from anyone" and embraced life in a diverse neighborhood with rough edges, said Patrick Welsh, 44, an actor and Pittsburgh native whose parents grew up in Emsworth and McKeesport. She'd traveled alone all over the world, hiking in South America and surviving a near-fatal bout of pneumonia in Bali.

When an elderly neighbor was knocked down by a bicyclist using the sidewalk, Welsh was incensed. After that, she'd shoo away bike messengers or scooter riders, bellowing: "It's a side-WALK, not a side-RIDE, you idiot!"

A native of Darby, Pa., Welsh worked for Bell Telephone Co. after she graduated from high school, and was among the original Flyerette hostesses for Philadelphia Flyers hockey games. Her desire to travel led her to join now-defunct Eastern Airlines in 1972.

After strikes crippled Eastern in the late 1980s, she briefly waited tables in a Greenwich Village restaurant and developed a "Sam-and-Diane" relationship with Patrick, the bartender hired the day after her. The Welshes married in 1991 and were active at St. Paul the Apostle church in Manhattan, where Debbie sang in the choir and Patrick was a lector and parish-council member.

Welsh later flew with Kiwi International Airlines before moving to United. She wasn't scheduled to fly Sept. 11, but had traded shifts with a co-worker.

"I don't think it was a mistake that she was on that flight," her husband said. "She was instrumental, like all those other brave people on that flight, in saving the lives of thousands of people."

Donald Greene

Executive vice president and chief financial officer, Safe Flight Instrument Corp., 52, Greenwich, Conn.; wife, Claudette; son Charlie, 14; daughter Jody, 10. He was headed to join four of his brothers for a hiking trip.

Donald Greene could open a bag of potato chips, eat only two or three and then walk away. His philosophy: No matter how much you eat, the first bite is the best.

Eager and inquisitive, Greene took little bites of many things. He learned to love the opera, to sail, to ski black diamond trails, to fly at age 14. The same discipline that tempered his desire could be seen in his meticulous pre-flight examination of the planes he piloted.

Greene, one of four brothers, was born in White Plains, N.Y. After his father died, his mother married Leonard Greene, the inventor of the stall warning indicator used in aircraft today, and a single father of three children. Greene adopted Donald and his three brothers, who gained one sister from the union of their mother and Leonard Greene. Shortly thereafter, Donald's mother died. Leonard then married a divorced woman who had four children of her own. The Greene family thus ballooned to 12 children.

Every Thanksgiving, all the siblings made a point of gathering for a week at a resort; Greene carried that same emphasis on family to his own brood. He dined with his wife and children every night at their Greenwich, Conn. home, whipped up breakfast for them most weekends and coached children's soccer teams. He also took the children flying.

A 1971 engineering graduate from Brown University, Greene worked several jobs before earning a business degree.

It was then that his father recruited him to his company, Safe Flight Instrument Corp., seeking his expertise as a business administrator and negotiator. Greene's people skills served him well both at work and social gatherings. At dinner parties, people wanted to sit next to Greene because of his pleasant personality and inventive plays on words.

He met his wife, Claudette, during a black tie fund-raiser in 1987.

That night, all the facets of his personality converged—his down-to-earth nature, positive outlook, charm and his piloting skills.

The event was held in an airplane hangar, with small planes parked in a semicircle to create an intimate space. They were one short, so Greene's stepmother, a museum president, asked him to fly in the final plane as a favor. She promised him a reward: a ticket to the dinner and dance. Greene told her he'd be happy to help, but forgot the ticket.

When he arrived, though, Greene acquiesced, agreeing to stay. He found himself seated next to Claudette, whose own date, her brother, had canceled. They hit it off right away.

Donald Peterson

He was the retired president, Continental Electric Co. Church and community volunteer, 66, of Spring Lake, N.J. His wife Jean Hoadley Peterson was a retired nurse and nursing teacher. Church and community volunteer, 55, of Spring Lake, N.J.
His sons, David, Hamilton, Royster Peterson. Her daughters, Jennifer, Grace, Catherine Price. They were on their way to a family reunion at Yosemite National Park.

She taught nursing, rode with the local ambulance service and raised three daughters. He was the president of New Jersey's Continental Electric Co. and the father of three boys.

After meeting through a church group in the early 1980s, they married in 1984. For the next 17 years, Donald A. Peterson and Jean Hoadley Peterson lived a life of quiet service to alcoholics and addicts, women with crisis pregnancies and residents of impoverished nations.

"They lived their lives and taught by example," said Jean Peterson's oldest daughter, Jennifer Price, 29, of Wellesley, Mass. "They didn't force their beliefs on people. They just quietly reached out to everybody who needed help."

Both were divorced parents when they became acquainted through a Christian fellowship group in Madison, N.J. A mutual friend, who had been Jennifer Price's kindergarten teacher, set them up.

"I was in the eighth grade when Don arrived on our doorstep to meet her," Price said, laughing at the memory. "Basically, he never left."

Jean Peterson was the daughter of Virginia and Walter Hoadley, a San Francisco economist who was vice president of Bank of America. She spent two years at Duke University before transferring to the University of Rochester, where she earned a nursing degree.

She later earned a master's of education degree from Columbia University and taught nursing in New Jersey for several years before moving with her first husband to England for several years.

After returning to New Jersey and later divorcing, she raised her three daughters—Jennifer, Grace and Catherine Price—and became an emergency-medical technician with the Madison ambulance squad. Although she was also active at church and with community organizations, her daughter Jennifer said her mother's answer was always, "I'm a mom," when people asked about her career.

"Once we all grew up and moved out, she dedicated herself to helping others," Price said. "The number of people my mother talked to in one day was amazing."

Don Peterson, too, was a tireless volunteer, particularly after he retired from the electric company and moved with Jean in 1991 to Spring Lake, N.J.

Don, who grew up in South Orange, N.J., graduated with degrees in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Rutgers University and later studied at Harvard University. But he seldom mentioned his prestigious degrees or work history.

"They never talked about their lives. They talked about you because they cared to meet you, learn something about you and how to help you," said the Rev. Jim Loveland of Community Baptist Church in Neptune, N.J., where the couple had worshipped for about three years.

"So many people read the obituaries and said they'd had no idea that they had those degrees or that Don been a president of a big company."

In Spring Lake, Don was on the board and counseled troubled men at America's Keswick, a residential recovery center for drug addicts and alcoholics in Whiting, N.J. Jean volunteered at the Helping Hands Pregnancy Center in Shrewsbury, N.J., collecting and washing clothes for babies whose mothers were clients.

Outgoing and charming, the Petersons led Bible studies and traveled with church friends to help a mission in Saint Lucia. They quietly made interest-free loans to families that needed a financial boost.

"Don and Jean had a comfortable life," Loveland said. "But they didn't flaunt it. They used their wealth to help people, to build the kingdom of God."

While the Petersons didn't live lavishly, they loved dining out, with Don seizing every opportunity to go out for breakfast. Jean seldom missed her regular stroll with a group along Spring Lake's boardwalk. They traveled. Two weeks before her death, Jean Peterson went to Wellesley, Mass., to hold her first grandchild, Jennifer Price's now-9-week-old daughter, Charlotte.

On Sept. 11, they'd planned to take a later flight to a family reunion at Yosemite National Park, but at the airport seized a chance to switch to less-crowded Flight 93. Their memorial service drew nearly 1,000 people they'd worked with, helped or counseled and had to be moved to a larger sanctuary nearby.

"I wasn't on that plane, but I believe I know what happened. At the end, I'm sure they were praying and ministering with the others, encouraging them to be right with the Lord," Loveland said. "That's what their lives were about."

Jean Peterson

Her husband, Donald Peterson, was the retired president, Continental Electric Co. Church and community volunteer, 66, of Spring Lake, N.J. She was a retired nurse and nursing teacher. Church and community volunteer, 55, of Spring Lake, N.J. His sons, David, Hamilton, Royster Peterson. Her daughters, Jennifer, Grace, Catherine Price. They were on their way to a family reunion at Yosemite National Park.