Mary L. Wieman was strong and hard-charging, a business executive and mother who more than once caught the red- eye home to New York from California, cooked breakfast for her husband and three children, then shot off to work at the Aon Corporation .

She orchestrated insurance coverage for major American corporations and she was so devoted to detail that early on Sept. 11, as she was preparing to run a meeting on the 105th floor of 2 World Trade Center, she polished the office furniture. "There were no insurmountable problems for her," said her husband, Marc Wieman.

Ms. Wieman, 43, loved dancing and throwing big parties for work and at home, and the loyalty she generated led people to congregate in her office when there was time to catch a breath. She kept trim by working out nearly every morning. When word came to evacuate, she walked down to the 78th floor. Then, inexplicably, she decided to take the elevator, colleagues told her husband.

"That decision was perfectly in character," Mr. Wieman said. "It was just like her to say, `I'm not taking the stairs.' And that would be it."