John Resta

A Fancy Proposal
The marriage proposal was famous in the Resta family. John Resta already had a reputation as a hopeless romantic, relatives said, but on this one he outdid even himself.

Mr. Resta and his wife, Sylvia SanPio Resta, had traveled to Florida several times, and there she found a seafood restaurant that she adored. So on the day he was to propose, he took the day off work. He had a meal ‹ lobster and other dishes ‹ and menus flown into New York City from the restaurant. He rented a tuxedo, a top hat and a cane, and spent the day setting up their apartment in Bayside, Queens, with candles, a fancy tablecloth and flowers.

Needless to say, the answer was yes, and they were married in the summer of 2000. When the two ‹ both traders for Carr Futures ‹ were killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, she was seven months pregnant with their first child.

Mr. Resta, 40, adored children, said his sister Chris Mazzeo, and he was obsessed with his wife's pregnancy, voraciously reading every childbirth book he could get his hands on and doting on her constantly. Mr. Resta's cousin Kenneth Bynoe said that as soon as Mr. Resta met Ms. SanPio Resta, 26, he was so smitten that he could not stop talking about her, especially about her habit of reading cookbooks on the train, from cover to cover, as if they were novels.

Ms. SanPio Resta was artistic, yet she had a mind for numbers, said her sister Martiza Mure. In college, she majored in both mathematics and ceramics, and she had recently inspired her husband to take up oil painting.

Ms. Mazzeo said: "My brother was an angel on earth. Now, he's an angel in heaven. Now he has wings."

Ms. SanPio Resta's sisters, who were planning her baby shower when she was killed, said that when they planned her memorial service, they chose the theme song "In the Arms of an Angel."