Thomas Edward Jurgens

A Sentimentalist

The night that Joan Jurgens met her future husband, Thomas, at a bowling alley, they sat and talked for hours. When the evening was over, she gave him her phone number on a little slip of paper.

But when he called, she was reluctant to go out. He was 19, she was 24. He told her age did not matter to him. They went out to a movie, "Murder in the First," and to dinner and sat for hours, the conversation never flagging. From then on, they were inseparable. After seven years, they married last June.

He was in the Army reserves. Every year, he went away for two weeks for training exercises. She wrote to him every day but did not send the letters because he would be home before they arrived. When he got home, he would read every one.

Four years ago, he took civil service exams to become a police officer and a court officer. He passed both. They talked it over and decided he would become a court officer. "It was supposed to be safer," she said.

Officer Jurgens, 26, who worked near the World Trade Center, was one of three court officers who disappeared while helping victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. Afterward, Mrs. Jurgens went through his papers. She found all of her old letters to him. And, in a carefully folded piece of plastic, she found two ticket stubs to "Murder in the First" and the slip of paper with her phone number.