Karleton D.B. Fyfe

'Really Living It'
Karleton Fyfe's mother had to be bedridden for the six months before he was born; he seemed to be in a hurry to get into the world.

There was so much to be excited about. Take the birth of his own son. He and his wife made it a group project. They sent family and close friends a video titled "It's a. . . ." showing them going for the sonogram, and at the end opening an envelope in which the doctor had written "boy." When Jackson turned 1, they asked the same group to write something and seal it for him to open when he turned 18.

Then, because Mr. Fyfe heard that the terrible 2's were caused by frustration at not being able to communicate, he taught his son sign language. "He was really living it," said Tristin Laughter a longtime friend of the couple.

Mr. Fyfe, 31, really lived everything, applying the same boyishness and determination whether he was mastering Steve Martin routines or the curveball as a kid, or tackling projects as a senior analyst at John Hancock — the job for which he was traveling on American Airlines Flight 11.
Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on December 31, 2001.


Karleton Fyfe's mother called his Brookline, Mass., home on Tuesday morning. She had seen the news of burning buildings and wanted to make sure her only son was not inside his 56th floor office in Boston.

He wasn't, Fyfe's wife, Haven, assured her mother-in-law. He was on an airplane.

Fyfe, a 31-year-old John Hancock employee and father of 1-year-old Jackson, was aboard American Airlines 11. The trip was for business.

Kansas City Star columnist Bill Tammeus had written almost all of his column--about the bombing--before he learned that Fyfe, his nephew, was a victim. "He's the kind of kid that if there was anything that could have been done on that plane to help, he would have done it," said Tammeus, who grew up in Woodstock.