They were short missives to her teammates, sent before big meets. They were all meant to uplift, but each one contained a personal detail. They were all signed with a heart next to her name. To her father, John, the notes were one of the many ways she went the extra distance to make others feel at home.

"She went out of her way to make other people feel comfortable," Mr. Sanders said. "With her friends, she would always end their conversations with, `I love you.’ Many of them learned to say that."

She had a large circle of friends, he said. But Ms. Sanders, 25, who had been working on a technology project for Marsh & McLennan at the World Trade Center, also had a knack for befriending her friends’ parents, their sisters and brothers, even their grandparents. It was not uncommon, Mr. Sanders said, for her to spend an evening having dinner and seeing a movie with her boyfriend’s grandmother, for instance. Ms. Sanders and her boyfriend, Bryan Koplin, were shopping for rings and considering marriage. "She had an incredible capacity to make herself a part of their families," Mr. Sanders said. "As a consequence, we all became a part of so many families."