EMERITA DE LA PEÑA: Best
Friends Forever
Emerita
de la Peña and Judith Diaz-Sierra met in business
school as teenagers and soon became best friends. Each
was the maid of honor at the other's wedding, they
vacationed together with their husbands, and they both
worked as administrative assistants at Fiduciary Trust
Company International, where Mrs. De la Peña had
helped recruit Ms. Diaz-Sierra in 1997.
Mrs. De la Peña, 32, of Queens, known by her
nickname, Emy, was the extrovert of the two. The mother
of a 1-year-old daughter, Daniella, she wanted to become
a schoolteacher and had been attending St. Francis
College in Brooklyn part time to get a bachelor's degree.
"She's beautiful and she was a beautiful person," said
her husband, Gabriel.
Ms. Diaz-Sierra was reserved but "had a great laugh, a
great heart, was very high in her morals and very
selective about her friends," said her husband, Ron
Sierra.
Ms. Diaz-Sierra, 32, worked one row away from her best
friend on the 90th floor of 2 World Trade Center. A
co-worker told Mr. Sierra the two were together when he
last saw them on the day of the attacks, as they held the
door open for him.
Mr. Sierra rushed to the city from Suffolk County,
where he and his wife lived, after learning of the
attack, but could not get onto the Brooklyn Bridge. As he
watched the soot-covered people walking from Manhattan,
he said, "I was just hoping that Emy and Judith would
come out, that they were among the thousands crossing the
bridge."
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