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Palmina Delli Gatti: Keeper of Helpful Secrets

 

Palmina Delli Gatti knew things. The secret of homemade pie crusts, for instance, and of a good thick pasta sauce. She knew. She knew the powerful people in the World Trade Center by their first names. When she traveled, she often went alone. They knew her in Paris, London, Rome.

"If there was a famous person in the room, there she was up there rubbing elbows with him," said her sister, Maria Fortuna.

Ms. Delli Gatti, 33, knew numbers. She was an accountant with Marsh & McLennan and lived with her father in Long Island City, Queens. In the evenings, she attended classes in pursuit of a master's degree in business administration, her sister said.

She never married, but hoped for a life mate. It just seemed that the career took possession of Ms. Delli Gatti's youthful years, her sister said. She liked fine things: jewelry from Fifth Avenue; good seats at Yankees games. "She was not afraid to walk through the door of life," Mrs. Fortuna said. "She knew what she wanted, and almost always she got it."

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From "Profiles in Grief" of The New York Times