On Sept. 11, Daniel M. Coffey and his son Jason M. Coffey planned to meet for lunch at the World Trade Center, where they both worked for subsidiaries of Marsh & McLennan. Daniel Coffey, 54, needed to have his wedding ring enlarged after 30 years of marriage. Jason Coffey, 25, was going along to pick out a surprise engagement ring for his fiancee, Colleen McDonald.Daniel Coffey, a senior vice president at Guy Carpenter & Company, worked on the 94th floor of One World Trade. Jason, a senior accountant at Marsh Inc., was on the 98th floor.
Daniel Coffey was the son and grandson of an only child and part of a family that has lived for generations in Newburgh, N.Y.
He and his wife, Francis, broke the mold with three sons, Daniel, Jason and Kevin. Daniel Coffey met his wife when she was trying to fix him up with her friend.
One of his gifts was gab. "Dad could talk to virtually anyone and get anything he wanted out of them," said his son Daniel. With his wife, the elder Coffey was fixing up the house in Newburgh. "My mother is very particular about what she wants done, and my father was particular in how he did it," young Daniel said.
Jason Coffey was a big guy who loved to play rugby. (His mother did not want him to play football. Too dangerous.) He was also always ready to go out, including to a local bar, Pineapple Larry’s.
But now he was settling down. He was in the process of buying his grandparent’s house in Newburgh and he and Ms. McDonald were going to fix it up, just like his father and mother did to their house. Jason Coffey and Ms. McDonald had planned to get married Dec. 7, 2002.
Copyright (c) 2001 by The New York Times Co. Reprinted by permission.
