She and her husband Donald were flying to Yosemite for a holiday with her brother and parents, and took the earlier flight when it was offered to them that morning. A nurse and a nursing instructor who volunteered as an emergency medical technician, and who counselled women through crisis pregnancies. She held a nursing degree from Rochester and a master's in education from Columbia.

Killed aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which came down in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on the morning of 11 September 2001. The aircraft had left Newark forty-two minutes late, which is the only reason those aboard learned by telephone what had already happened in New York before theirs was taken. They had about thirty minutes. They voted, and they went forward at the cockpit door. The aircraft never reached what it was aimed at.