"The Bible meant everything to my mom. She would come home, and after she finished her work at home, she would stay up to 9 or 10 at night reading the Bible, and then she would give my father and me Scriptures to memorize." -- Freddye Carter, daughter

Profile:

Angelene C. Carter has a passion for family, Orlando vacations and doing church work. The 51-year-old accountant is among those who went to work at the Pentagon on Tuesday and did not come home.

"I am keeping up hope," her husband, Fred, a retired Army sergeant from Forestville, said as he stood on his front steps and talked about the woman he fell in love with on a dance floor 20 years ago. "It was a Christmas office party," he recalled, "and she asked me to dance."

They married two years later and had a daughter, Freddye, now 17. This summer, Freddye and her mother visited Universal Studios and rode rides together. But her mother has a tough side, too, Freddye said: "She always says, 'Keep your head in the books and clean up your room.' "

Angelene Carter is a member of St. Paul Baptist Church in Capitol Heights, where she serves on the usher board.

Fred Carter, who works for the Internal Revenue Service, drove with his wife to the Suitland Metro station Tuesday morning. They rode the same train across the Anacostia River, then went their separate ways. He hasn't seen her since.

Every day, he visits the Pentagon's family crisis center, set up at a nearby hotel. "I go there twice a day," he said, "at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., when they give out information."

-- Hamil R. Harris

Source: The Washington Post, AP and washingtonpost.com

The profiles in this feature were written in the months following Sept. 11, 2001.