Skip to main content

Add new Guest Book entry

Restricted HTML

  • You can align images (data-align="center"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • You can caption images (data-caption="Text"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • Each email address will be obfuscated in a human readable fashion or, if JavaScript is enabled, replaced with a spam resistent clickable link. Email addresses will get the default web form unless specified. If replacement text (a persons name) is required a webform is also required. Separate each part with the "|" pipe symbol. Replace spaces in names with "_".
 

Guestbook comments are held until moderator approval.

In addition to this Guestbook post, if you are a family or friend of this victim, we welcome you to contribute photographs, documents, or stories to this Living Memorial page. To do so, complete this submission form . Your content will be reviewed by our team, and a staff member will reach out to you at your convenience.

 
In Remembrance
Age:
40
Place of Residence:
Danvers, MA
Location on 9/11:
Aircraft
Occupation:
American Airlines | Flight Attendant
Biography:

Karen Martin's friends say she was not just a Type A personality, she was a Type A+. Competitive. Organized. In charge. On the stick to a fault.

She did her Christmas shopping during the summer, had it all wrapped up and out of the way by first frost.

When water skiing, she would dip and slip a little lower than most people. On snow, she always took the steeper, riskier route down. Golfing? She hit from the men's tee.

Back in the 1980's, Ms. Martin, from Danvers, Mass., worked for a while as a bartender at the Hard Rock Cafe in Boston — a Type A+ bartender. She set up her glasses and bottles just so, kept a precise inventory of everything and ragged on all the other bartenders to do likewise. They grumbled. But it was good-natured grumbling because at heart they liked Karen Martin's style. They went along.

In 1989, Ms. Martin became an American Airlines flight attendant and, jumping up onto a chair, proclaimed to her friends: "There is now something special in the air." She liked to work the long, hard hauls, especially the coast-to-coast "transcons."

On Sept. 11, she was the head attendant on American Flight 11, bound out of Boston for Los Angeles. She was 40 years old.