Lisa M. King-Johnson

A Day Off for Kindergarten
A year ago today, Lisa King-Johnson's younger daughter, Katie, was starting kindergarten, and so she took the day off from her job at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods on the 89th floor of the World Trade Center's south tower. She got Katie dressed for school and was there waiting for her in the sunshine when everyone was ready to go home.

"She loved her children so much," said her friend Kara Iaconis. "She was always talking about them. She stayed totally committed to making their upbringing perfect." If she went on a business trip, she made sure to bring something back for them. If they needed clothes for school or some other occasion, she made sure they had them, no matter how busy she was at work.

Ms. King-Johnson, 34, was divorced from their father, Paul King, and had remarried the previous May. "I could see what a good mother she was," said her husband, Jim Johnson. There was that winter day, cold as ice, a few years ago when they all traveled upstate with a group of neighbors from Rockaway Park, Queens, to select a Christmas tree. Cheeks red, breath puffing, he and she and the two girls all converged on the same perfect tree at the same time.