Adele Sessa

Forever, Aunt Doe

Irene Sessa has come to certain conclusions in her tenure as mother of three girls. One is this: "First a woman has to feel that she's somebody, and do something with herself, and be fulfilled." Then she can think about marriage.

Her daughter Adele Sessa had met her mother's stipulations, and then some. Since her father died in 1988, Ms. Sessa had worked and helped her family. An international equities trader for Cantor Fitzgerald, she traveled extensively and rented a summer house in the Hamptons, but she also gave her younger brother her car and paid the insurance on it while he was in school, helped her sisters in the family's flower shop in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, and spent Sunday nights with her nieces at home on Staten Island.

One niece couldn't say her name, so Ms. Sessa got a nickname. "She loved it," said her older sister, Elena Sandberg. "She'd sign cards, `Aunt Doe.' That was her name and that would have been her name forever."

With so many accomplishments, her mother said: "My only regret is she didn't have time to have a family. In April or May she said, `Ma, I want to get married and have babies. I'm ready now.' " She was 36.