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Patricia A. Cody: En Route to Teaching Career

 

Patricia A. Cody kept busy. During the day, she was a senior vice president and managing director at Marsh & McLennan. At night, she was a college student again, studying for a teaching degree at Fordham. Someday in the future, she imagined, she would settle into a new career as an English teacher.

"We were talking one day," said her husband, Thomas Cody, "and I said, `Quite frankly, the insurance industry is not kind to you when you become 50. Maybe you should think of what you want to do next."

Well, she loved to read. Part of her job involved teaching courses in insurance and management, and she felt she had a real knack for teaching. So four years ago, she enrolled at Fordham. She would have earned all the credits she needed by next June.

Mrs. Cody, 46, worked at Marsh's Midtown offices but was at a company meeting in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11.

She and her husband lived in Brigantine, N.J., a shore community. It made for a long commute, but she felt it was worth it to be near the water. They moved there in April last year, and planned to retire there.

She had a fondness for angels. She always wore an angel pin on her shoulder. "It was her guardian angel," said Beth Natiello, her daughter. "As far back as I can remember, she never left the house without it."

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From "Profiles in Grief" of The New York Times