Lauren Grandcolas 38 years old San Rafael, CA Lauren Grandcolas was a saleswoman for Good Housekeeping magazine. She was returning from her grandmother's funeral in New Jersey. Neighbors say Lauren was often seen racing through the hills of her neighborhood on inline skates. "She was just a very, very kind and loving person who enjoyed life," said Mark Grandcolas, her brother-in-law who lives in Burlingame. A friend of Lauren and Jack Grandcolas, Steve Anderson, gave us some details about Lauren's brief cell phone call from the plane: What Jack authorized me to pass along to you is that it was a brief message to him and her family expressing her love for them and "that there was a little problem on the plane, that she said she was fine for now, that she just wanted us to know how much she loved us." She was brave and calm given what she was going through. Jack and Lauren's family have not released the tape or any transcript to anybody to keep it private and unsensational. The following is excerpted from a notice in the Los Angeles Times on September 18, 2001. Lauren Grandcolas was born in Bloomington, Indiana on August 31, 1963. She was the daughter of Lawrence and Barbara Catuzzi of Houston, TX and Lake Toxaway, NC; the cherished and adored wife of Jack Grandcolas of San Rafael, CA; the loving sister of Dara Ann Near of Short Hills, NJ and Vaughn Catuzzi Lohec of Chatham, NJ. Lauren was a graduate of Stratford High School in Houston, TX and the University of Texas in Austin, where she was a member of the Alpha Delta Pi Sorority. Lauren and Jack were members of the Marin Country Club in Novato, CA. While residing in San Francisco, she worked for the law firm of Thelin, Marlin, Johnson, and Bridges as a marketing executive, followed by positions at Price Waterhouse and Good Housekeeping Magazine. Most recently, Lauren was collaborating with a publisher on a boo related to women's life-style achievements aimed at boosting the self-confidence of women specifically, and adult behavior in general. This nonfiction work was a long-term goal and source of great pride to her. Lauren so appreciated the outdoors that, in her spare time, she participated in hiking, jogging, roller blading, and kayaking amongst many other activities. Lauren was a strong and caring friend to everyone she knew; she will be dearly missed by all. For those who wish, contributions may be made to the Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas Foundation, 600 Travis, Suite 4200, Houston, TX 77002. Lauren left us the way she lived her life, strong, determined, courageous and our heroine Wanda Green 49 years old Linden, New Jersey Wanda was a flight attendant on United Flight 93. She worked for United Airlines for 30 years, had a lifelong passion for flying and dreamed of seeing the world. Wanda's mother, Aserene Smith, called her daughter the night before the plane crashed in Pennsylvania to find out what time to expect her at the family's home in Oakland, California. "She had just cut the light and she was in bed," Smith said. "I said, 'OK, I'll see you tomorrow. I love you.'" She is survived by her two children, her mother, father, brother and twin sister. Donald Greene 52 years old Greenwich, CT Mr. Greene was the CEO was Safe Flight Instrument Corp., a White Plains, New York, firm that also sponsored the Corporate Angel Network, a program that flies cancer victims throughout the country for treatment. Donald's family has wondered why he didn't call from the plane, but they think they know the answer. "There's no question in our minds he was in control of the plane at the end," said Mr. Greene's sister-in-law, Cecilia Rhoda. "I could hear him saying, 'We're going to die anyway, but let's prevent as much chaos as we can.'" Linda Gronlund 46 years old Warwick, NY An employee of BMW, working in environmental compliance. David Freilich, VP and General Counsel for Volvo Financial Services, and David Wertheim, VP and General Counsel for Ferrari North America Inc. wrote into Automotive News regarding Linda Gronlund: To those of us who knew her while she worked at Volvo Cars of North America from 1985 to 1990, Linda will always be remembered as an uplifting and professional colleague and friend. What set Linda apart from others, however, was the laser-like intensity and passion with which she went about her work. We have no doubt that Linda played a key role in ensuring that Flight 93 never struck its intended target. Sadly, the automotive community has lost one of its finest members. Richard Guadagno 38 years old Eureka, CA Richard was the manager of the Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge in northern California. He had completed training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia, so it's easy for his friends to imagine that he was involved in the heroic efforts of the passengers that day. "Richard would have been one of the ones to intervene," said Dave Paullin, his supervisor at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. A stained glass artist, Richard Guadagno hunted, fished, camped, hiked, studied the stars and worked in his greenhouse. He spent most of the last year supervising work on a new visitor's center at the refuge. "He watched over that project like a mother hen," Paullin said. "He really wanted it to be an asset to the community. He was looking forward to showing off 'his' refuge." The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has created a memorial for Richard here: http://pacific.fws.gov/guadagno/. Leroy Homer 36 years old Marlton, New Jersey Mr. Homer was the first officer of United Flight 93 -- the co-pilot. A native of Hauppage, New York, he was an Air Force Academy graduate, a recruiter for the academy, a former Air Force pilot, and an Air Force reservist. Friends say he was also a dedicated family man. "He loved his job. He loved his family," said Martin Hnatov, a friend. Mr. Homer is survived by his wife, Melodie, and a 10-month-old daughter. The following message is excerpted from the guestbook for Leroy Homer at AmericanLegacy.com: "LeRoy was a friend from grade school and high school. We recently reconnected and in May he visited my home. He met with my husband and my son. LeRoy was so happy to share pictures of his new baby, Laurel, and his wife, Melodie. I was so pleased that he was able to stop in on his way to Kennedy airport where he was flying out of that day. "LeRoy grew in to a fine man. I remember the boy he was back in 1979 and the young man he became in 1987. All grown up, he became a gentleman. I am sorry that our firendship will not grow. God bless you, LeRoy, I know you died doing what impassioned you. Flying was your life ... it was evident." Love, Michele LaBarr-Haynes (Rego Park, NY) Toshiya Kuge 20 years old Hyogo Prefecture, Japan Toshiya was a second-year student in the science and engineering school at Waseda University, in Suginami Ward, Tokyo. According to relatives, he left Japan on August 29 and had planned to return Wednesday, September 12, 2001. The following message is excerpted from the guestbook for Toshiya Kuge at AmericanLegacy.com: "We met Toshiya ten days before the crash, when we were on a rafting trip together in the Canadian Rockies. We had a lovely day talking with him about his life. He was a kind and gentle person. When we saw a Dateline special about Flight 93 we were horrified to recognize his picture among the victims. We have sent his family our condolences. But not many Americans are talking about the non-U.S. people who were killed. Toshiya's death was tragic and no less grievous than any others. We are honored to have met him." --Debbie and Kristen (Chicago, IL) Hilda Marcin 79 years old Budd Lake, NJ The following story by Laura Bruno was published by the Daily Record: Many staff members [of the Morris County public schools] also knew the inevitable fate of 79-year-old retired aide and Mount Olive resident Hilda Marcin. Staff members knew her well and knew her plans to visit her daughter in San Francisco and knew which flight she was taking ... "She was a person we all hoped to be like at that age -- to have that energy and enthusiasm," said Fair. Fair described Marcin as a Jessica Tandy-like character in her sharpness of wit and enthusiasm for life. "When other people would stop, she kept going." Marcin was a classroom aide at Tinc Road for 14 years after retiring as an office manager at a Newark company, he said. "The kids liked and respected her," Fair said. "She's the kind of person you didn't forget." School officials received confirmation about her death Tuesday from her granddaughter, who works in the school district. Marcin's daughter lives in Budd Lake. "We struggled as a staff," Fair said, "even though we feel she's still with us. It made the tragedy so much more real." Waleska Martinez 37 years old Jersey City, NJ Waleska Martinez was an automation specialist for the U.S. Census Bureau. She was on her way to a Census Bureau conference in San Francisco. The Chicago Tribune reported that she did not want to go on this flight. Her mother and brother were visiting from Puerto Rico. "She felt like she was leaving her heart behind," Martinez's friend and co-worker, Maritza Padilla-Laureda. "It was very hard for her to get on that plane." But she was a hard worker -- in fact, in 1997 the Census Bureau awarded her a bronze medal for her dedication to her job. The Department of Commerce has set up a fund to help Ms. Martinez's family and that of her colleague Marion Britton. Nicole Miller 21 years old San Jose, CA Miss Miller graduated from Pioneer High School in 1998. She was a student at West Valley College in Saratoga, California. These messages were found on AmericanMemorials.com: "Nicole was a great friend to me. she was full of life she was a great inspriation. I knew nicole from pioneer high school in san jose ca. I wish you all knew her she was great." - Shanna Nelson "Nicole was a vibrant young woman who had her life ahead of her. My condolences and prayers go out to her family and her fiance Ryan Brown. I am deeply saddend to have lost a friend. Always in our hearts and prayers. IN MEMORY OF NICOLE MILLER." - Katiria Bacio Louis J. Nacke 42 years old New Hope, PA A distribution center director for Kay-Bee Toys. He was recently married. Tom Atkisson, who had worked for Nacke for 12 years, described him for the Washington Post: "Lou was the kind of guy that could take you into the office and kind of let you know where you were and where you needed to be, and then five minutes later come back and be joking with you. "He was very career-oriented. But eventually he met Amy and was very happy finally after years of being single." Donald A. Peterson 66 years old Jean Hoadley Peterson 55 years old Spring Lake, NJ The following is excerpted from The Chicago Tribune. They weren't supposed to be on United Flight 93, but they got to the Newark airport early, and their original flight was late and crowded. So Donald and Jean Peterson, planning to fly to San Francisco for an annual family trip to Yosemite National Park, grabbed seats 14A and 14C on Flight 93. They died when their plane crashed into the rolling hills of Pennsylvania. "He was coming to see me in a few weeks, which is heartbreaking," said David Peterson, Donald Peterson's eldest son, who lives in Hawaii and hadn't seen his father in a year. More than 1,000 people came to a service for the couple. Donald Peterson, 66, former head of Continental Electric in New Jersey and a former member of the New Jersey Board of Education, had started working as a Christian missionary about 10 years ago with his wife. Jean Peterson, 55, had just held her first grandchild, one of her three daughters said. David Peterson and family members of other Flight 93 victims traveled to the crash site. He stared at the scorched trees for what he thought was five minutes. He was told he stood there for an hour. CeeCee Ross-Lyles 34 years old Fort Myers, FL Mrs. Lyles was one of the flight attendants on board United 93. Before working as a flight attendant, she was a police officer for six years. She resigned because the airline industry offered more perks and less stress. Mrs. Lyles husband, Lorne, a police officer, received a phone call that morning. She was surprisingly calm, he said, considering the screaming he heard in the background. "Just hearing my wife saying she loved us through all that chaos on that plane is just embedded in my heart forever," he said. Mrs. Lyles' son Jerome Smith is 16 years old. "Everything that happened, the tragedy, was for a cause," he said. Mark "Mickey" D. Rothenberg 52 years old Scotch Plains, NJ Mr. Rothenberg was the owner of MDR Global Resources. He is survived by his wife of 30 years, Meredith, his daughters, Rachel, age 27, and Sara, age 22, and his mother, Dorothy. This photo was posted on the tribute page for Mark Rothenberg on AmericanLegacy.com. Christine Snyder 32 years old Kailua, HA Christine was an arborist for an environmental organization called The Outdoor Circle. She grew up in Hawaii and had never been to the East Coast until this trip. "She had been to a lot of fun places and told me she had a lot of pictures she couldn't wait to show me," said Ian Pescaia, Christine's husband of three months. "She was in love with life," Mr. Pescaia said. "She didn't have a bitter spot in her." The following was sent to us by Christine Snyder's mother-in-law, Ian Pescaia's mother, Leslie Adams: Ian and Chris attended the same high school, Kalaheo High School here in Kailua, on the island of Oahu, Hawaii ... The Outdoor Circle, where Chris was Project Manager, is an environmental awareness group that has been instrumental in keeping Hawaii clean and green. Chris was also one of the very few women Certified Arborists in the United States, and had just left a tree conference -- and so trees are being planted in her memory throughout the US. There is a Milo tree planted in her memory here at Magic Island, in the Ala Moana Beach Park in Honolulu, along with a Memorial Bench erected in her memory by the Mayor's Office. The site where the tree and bench reside looks out over the ocean and is in absolutely a beautiful spot; Chris loved Hawaii, our beautiful environment and was passionate about keeping our "aina" (the land) precious and sacred. Ian and Chris were not only beloved husband and wife, they were soul mates. Chris was such a presence of LIGHT wherever she went that everyone she knew always remembered her even after one introduction -- and she is missed terribly. We found that reading about this plane load of very special, very brave people -- about every single one of them, brought us closer to Chris and helped us heal a bit more. For more about Christine, see this tribute page created by one of her friends. The photo above is borrowed from this page. John Talignani 74 years old Staten Island, NY Mr. Talignani was flying to San Francisco to claim the body of his son-in-law, Alan Zykofsky, who was killed in a car crash on his honeymoon. He was a cook, a pizzeria owner, and later a bartender at Manhattan's Palm Too Restaurant, where he worked for 20 years. His wife of 25 years, Selma, died four years ago. He treated her three sons as his own. The following is excerpted from an article in the New York Daily News: Sgt. Mitchell Zykofsky might easily surrender to despair. But he won't. Somehow he copes with an avalanche of grief. "Everything's different now," said Zykofsky, 43, a detective in Manhattan's 13th Precinct. "Day-to-day life has changed. In a lot of ways, you become more appreciative of more ordinary things, like waking up in the morning: 'Made it another day.'" Zykofsky's season of mourning began Sept. 6. While honeymooning in California, his younger brother Alan died in a head-on crash with a truck. At age 40, stockbroker Alan Zykofsky had found the right woman, a teacher from Hong Kong he met over the Internet. "I never saw him so happy," said the sergeant. "He would just stare at his wedding ring." His bride, Valerie, survived the crash, but her knees were crushed, her chin and shoulder broken. Sgt. Zykofsky and his wife, Shari, flew out West on Sept.10 to collect his brother's body in Visalia, Calif., and help his injured sister-in-law. The next morning, Zykofsky's 74-year-old stepfather, John Talignani, took off for California, a passenger on United Airlines Flight 93. That was the hijacked jet that crashed in a field in western Pennsylvania after a passenger revolt. "Once we found out that they had fought on that plane, it helped us cope," said Shari Zykofsky. "Mitch said John could have just died an obscure old man. At least this way, he died a hero." Honor Elizabeth Wainio 27 years old Watchung, NJ Honor Elizabeth Wainio was a district manager for the Discovery Channel stores. Elizabeth's stepmother in Baltimore reportedly received a call from Elizabeth on a phone lent to her by Lauren Grandcolas and told her, "I've got to go now, Mom, they're breaking into the cockpit." The following obituary by Gail Gibson was published by The Baltimore Sun: Born in Baltimore, Honor Elizabeth Wainio grew up in Catonsville and went to college in Towson. A district manager in New Jersey for the Discovery Channel's retail stores, she was traveling on Flight 93 Tuesday morning from Newark for a meeting in San Francisco. Ms. Wainio, who lived in Watchung, N.J., was 27. A 1991 graduate of Catonsville High School, she earned a bachelor's degree in communications from Towson University in 1995. She had worked in retail stores during college and had developed a great interest in what it took to make a store successful, said her stepmother, Esther Heymann of Catonsville. Ms. Wainio, who helped oversee the 1999 opening of the Discovery Channel Store at Harborplace in Baltimore, truly had a deep joy of living -- "joie de vivre," her stepmother said. "She was just one of the most enthusiastic people," Ms. Heymann said. "She treasured and cherished her friends." Besides her stepmother, Ms. Wainio is survived by her father, Ben Wainio of Catonsville, and her mother, Mary White of Port St. Lucie, Fla., a brother and a sister. On Sunday, Ms. Wainio had returned from a two-week trip to Europe, where she had attended the wedding of longtime friends in Florence, Italy, and visited another friend in Paris. Ms. Wainio had told Ms. Heymann the trip was fabulous. "She said, 'After Paris, what else could there be?'" A childhood friend of Elizabeth's, Charles McElhose Jr., has created a special tribute to her and the other heroes of Flight 93 -- "Elizabeth's 'Honor' flag." Charles writes: "It is a Gadsden with a blue field depicting a large star representing the life we will remember, 27 stars for each year of her life, and her first name, Honor. The flag will mean all the things the Gadsden flag meant (our unity, strength, and resolve) and shows both specific memory of my lost friend with the additional message of our acknowledgement of the honor that all of the passengers on her plane showed. "I would be honored it you would use it on your site and offer it to people to use for the intended purpose of printing it out for display in their cars, windows, etc. to show their memory of my friend and the people on that flight, and that they stood up in the face of terror and brought it down." Click here for Charles' high resolution version of the flag, suitable for printing. Deborah "Debbie" A. Welsh 49 years old New York, NY Debbie Welsh was one of the flight attendants. Her sister Eileen wrote in with this message: Debbie was my big sister and always there to listen, give support, encouragement, and love. She and I had so much fun together and laughed at the silliest things! Losing her is like losing a part of myself; I feel such a void and I miss her so much that, sometimes, the pain is unbearable. She loved life and really enjoyed people, which is why she loved her job and was so good at it. Debbie was the Pursor on Flight 93, which means she worked in first class and had access to the cockpit, so the terrorists had to get to her first. We don't know what happened to Debbie on that flight; she had a cell phone but didn't call. Maybe she wasn't able to. But perhaps, being as professional as she was, she was just doing her job and kept the passengers as calm and comfortable as she could. God Bless you, Debbie, I love you. Another visitor to UnitedHeroes.com wrote in to say: [Debbie] is the wife of a friend of my fiance -- I'd only met her a few times, but that was enough to know that she seemed to have an incredible zest for life. Debbie's smile is her most beautiful feature, and I can imagine that her smile must have comforted all of the other people on her flight. She and her husband Patrick seemed to be so right together, and I'm so sorry for his loss. I know that her loss will leave an empty place in many hearts. This message about her was found on AmericanMemorials.com: Debbie and I were classmates at Notre Dame, Moylan, Class of 70.  She was very outgoing and had a great sense of humor.  I am sure that she was a great source of comfort to the passengers during their ordeal and most likely had a significant role in thwarting the hijackers from reaching their ultimate destination. -Pat Murray Kristin Gould White 65 years old New York, NY A freelance medical journalist. The following is excerpted from The Chicago Tribune. Kristin White had sailed down the Nile, seen the ruins of Sicily and visited Turkey. She spoke Latin and ancient Greek. White, a 65-year-old widow, planned to visit San Francisco to visit friends and wine country. For 40 years, White, a freelance medical journalist, had lived in the same brownstone apartment in New York City. For almost three years, she had been researching early contributors to medicine and science from Ivy League schools. "She was a sponge," said her only daughter, Allison Vadhan. "She could tell you everything about current events, ancient history. She was the most intellectual person I ever knew." On the morning of Sept. 11, Vadhan was driving to work when she noticed smoke coming from one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. She pulled over and saw the second plane fly into the second tower. She rushed home. Then Vadhan started wondering about her mother. Was she flying Monday? Tuesday? Wednesday? Vadhan dialed into the Internet and checked the itinerary her mother had sent her on electronic mail. She saw "Flight 93" on the e-mail at the same time the flight number and the crash flashed across her TV screen. If you are a friend or family member of anyone on Flight 93 and have photos, information, or links you would like to contribute, please email Chris Whitten at chris@interesting.com. Out of respect for the wishes of the families, please do not send anything that they might prefer to be kept private. Thank you. CONDOLENCES