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ROBERT J. DeANGELIS JR.: Firefighting and the Church

 

Just because he spent his working life as a project manager for the Washington Group International Ð helping to build one of the biggest dams in the world, in the Philippines -- Robert J. DeAngelis Jr. did not curtail his responsibilities as a district fire commissioner on Long Island. He had begun as a volunteer fireman 29 years ago, had taken decades of fire calls in the middle of the night, and this avocation was an anchor of his life.

Nor did his demanding job keep Mr. DeAngelis from 6:30 a.m. Mass every day at St. Thomas the Apostle Roman Catholic Church in West Hempstead, N.Y. In fact, Msgr. James Lisante had given him the keys so that he could open the church on mornings when the priest arrived later than the 47-year-old Mr. DeAngelis.

On Sept. 11, Mr. DeAngelis called upon his rescue expertise in evacuating co-workers in his office on the 91st floor of 2 World Trade Center and in guiding many others downstairs. Then he went back up to his office to man the phones, said his wife, Denise. "I was still talking with him when the phone went dead."

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From "Profiles in Grief" of The New York Times