.

.

      

Henry Fernandez: A House for His Mother

 

When he wasn't at his job making pastries at Windows on the World, Henry Fernandez was probably out playing soccer with his buddies at Flushing Park, or inviting friends to the apartment he shared with four cousins. Or he would be calling home, a small town in Ecuador, to check on his mother and other family members.

"He was very active," said one of the cousins he lived with, Hernan Calle, 29. "He would say, let's go play soccer. Let's do this, let's do that. Oh! He had so many friends, either people he worked with or paisanos from Ecuador that he met here."

Mr. Fernandez, who was 23, came to New York about nine years ago, and quickly found work and a home among his relatives in Elmhurst, Queens, a neighborhood that has attracted many from his country.

"A lot of people from Ecuador of that age, because of the lack of employment there, come here to seek their fortunes," the cousin said. "He and his brother Alfredo wanted to buy a house for their mother."

"He was such a good young man," Mr. Calle said. "He was like a brother to me."

.

From "Profiles in Grief" of The New York Times