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In Remembrance
Age:
48
Place of Residence:
Rockville Centre, NY
Location on 9/11:
Two WTC
Occupation:
AON Corporation | Senior Vice President
Reflections:
The New York Times Portraits of Grief
James E. Cove Memorial Scholarship

The Ag-neWs Magazine

Hobbies and Special Interests:
tennis
golf
sports enthusiast
NY Rangers
NY Yankees
NY Giants
Biography:

James Cove of Rockville Centre was one of the quiet ones, his penchant for acerbic one-liners notwithstanding. A senior vice president at Aon Corp., he was a steadfast man of 48, whose green eyes took notice and whose ears listened.

Even as a child growing up in Flatbush, “Jimmy took a lot in,” said his sister, Regina Martin of Lynbrook. The youngest of three, he was an altar boy and a Boy Scout who “just always put himself out for people … he was very dependable,” his sister said.

Adulthood didn’t change that. In the midst of his counterculture phase, Cove went to Woodstock. “He looked the part, he had the long sideburns and all,” said his sister.

His focus helped him woo his future wife, Theresa. They met in 1981 in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. He was interested. She wasn’t.

But their love snuck up on her. “He was just so even, so steady and so genuine,” she said. “I didn’t know how funny he was,” she told a friend after a 1983 date, where he squired her to his company softball game and dinner.

That night was a turning point in their relationship — soon after, they got serious, they got married, and they moved to Long Island, where they would raise three sons. Cove, ever observant, pegged the night as an important one and saved the $55 check from dinner as a memento.

A Mr. Fix-It type, Cove settled happily into fatherhood and home ownership. He taught his boys — Michael, now 16, Ryan, 13, and Greg, 9 — how to ski, took them sailing, and molded them into miniature Rangers fans. And as they grew older, he was there for them, and he would listen. “They could rely on him for that,” his wife said.

Cove was killed in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, where he worked on the 103rd Floor of the south tower. In addition to his wife, children and sister, he is survived by his mother, Margaret Cove, and his brother, Frank Cove, both of Lynbrook.

Faith has helped sustain the Coves. Theresa Cove watches for the small signs that tell her that her husband is watching. And her mother-in-law “just takes things and places them in God’s hands,” said Regina Martin. “She feels he’s in a better place.” — Jennifer Smith