Patricia Cushing always put others ahead of herself, starting with her husband, Thomas. Patricia was a mother of five, and a devout Roman Catholic who kept faith after her husband died 13 years ago. She retired from Bell Atlantic last year.

Passenger: PATRICIA CUSHING
Age: 69
Residence: Bayonne, NJ, United States
Occupation: Retired service representative for New Jersey Bell
Location: UA Flight 93
Date: 11 September 2001
She was traveling to San Francisco on vacation with her sister-in-law, Jane Cushing Folger

After meeting on a blind date, they married less than a year later in 1958. She uprooted her life in Maryland for him, quitting a job at the local phone company because the liquor store he ran was in New Jersey.

When Cushing's father-in-law died, she became the caretaker for his wife, taking her into the couple's Bayonne home. She did the same for her husband's aunt.

Growing up in the post-Depression generation, Cushing saw how hard her father worked. He labored for an electric company during the day, ate dinner and went to night school for accounting.

Cushing followed that ethic at home. She raised five children, achieving fame among them for her meatloaf, and then went back to work to help make ends meet when her youngest son, David, was about 9.

She returned to her roots and got a job with New Jersey Bell Telephone. In 1999, after 20 years, Cushing retired from her position as a service representative.

Although not a college graduate -- she was studying to become a teacher before she got married -- she had a sophisticated sensibility.
She loved music, and became a season ticket holder at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City after her husband died in 1988. She accompanied her sister-in-law, Jane Folger, to every type of cultural event.

At home, Cushing kept things proper and tidy. She never let jeans or sweatpants degrade her dresser drawers. Her sons mercilessly teased her about the dinner-table rules she imposed -- sit straight and chew with your mouth closed -- and her obsession with cleaning. If they broke those rules, they were the target of Cushing's evil eye.

Cushing believed in maintaining her dignity during adversity and never letting anyone see her down. The words "woe is me" never crossed her lips. If her son, David, was upset about his job, she would advise him to focus on the good in his life.

It was that core strength that served her well over the last few years in supporting Folger, who had gone through a divorce and the death of two sons. She was a balm for Folger's edgier personality.

Best friends among heroes on Flight 93
Sisters-in law led quiet lives of good deeds
Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer, Sunday, Sep 30, 2001

As America seeks to honor the heroes of United Airlines Flight 93, it would be easy to overlook two elderly sisters-in-law and best friends from Bayonne, N.J.

After all, since their families at first sought to grieve in private, their names are not on any official accounting of the doomed flight's passengers or on public lists of proposed honorees for the Congressional Gold Medal.

But in their quiet lives and good deeds, Patricia Cushing, 69, and Jane Folger, 73, embody what is good and heroic about America.

The two had long been in-laws -- Cushing was married for more than 30 years to Folger's brother, Thomas, now deceased -- and lived six blocks from each other in Bayonne, a city of 68,000 just across the Hudson River from New York.

But they had grown particularly close in the last two years. They were on their way to San Francisco -- a city their children had raved about, but which the two women had never seen -- when Flight 93 was seized by terrorists and crashed in western Pennsylvania.

Cushing was a mother of five, a devout Roman Catholic who kept faith after her husband died 13 years ago.

When she retired from Bell Atlantic last year, her co-workers recalled her as "always classy" and "the best person we've had the pleasure to work with."

"She was just a great person, there's no doubt about it," said Pegeen Cushing, Patricia's daughter and Folger's niece. "She never said a bad word about anybody."

Cushing went to church every Sunday. "She believed in her faith, in a higher power," her daughter said. "When my dad passed away, I kept asking, 'Why? Why?' She told me it's not my place to question why. She just totally believed in God.

"I wish I could be as strong as her."

Folger was also strong. A mother of six, she lost one son in Vietnam, another to AIDS. After raising her family, she worked 25 years at a local bank before retiring in 1994.

She couldn't drive, but she loved to walk Bayonne's main street. She thought nothing about jumping public transit for New York with her grandchildren.

One of the last photos taken of her in that city is with her granddaughters Laura, 15, and Erin, 14, at the top of the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

Folger loved to shop, but seldom was satisfied with the merchandise. It seemed only the patient Cushing, who would drive on the shopping trips, could put up with her finicky ways.

"My mom would drive anybody out of her mind when she shopped," said Folger's son Robert. "But my aunt Pat was the most patient woman who ever lived."

The two became practically inseparable.
"They did everything together," Pegeen Cushing said. "They were devoted to each other and their family."

Both women had talked about going to San Francisco for many years. Finally, as a gift, Folger's family gave her a trip for two to the city. Everybody knew she would choose Cushing to come along.
"When she asked my mom to go with her," Pegeen Cushing said, "my mom was overwhelmed."

Folger worried about earthquakes, so she had Robert call a friend here to ask about "earthquake season."
Assured there was no such thing, they set their flight for Sept. 11. They took a cab to the Newark Airport, intending to return the following Tuesday.

"Knowing our aunt Pat was with her, there wasn't a worry in the world," Robert Folger said. "She was such a calming influence."

The long day of Tuesday, the two families learned that Cushing and Folger had been among the 44 people aboard Flight 93.

Stories began to circulate about efforts by some of the passengers to take back the plane from the four hijackers. David Cushing knows his mother would not have been able to help. But he pictures her praying, supporting the effort.

"That is how my mom was," he said. "She was always there for everybody."

After the plane went down, United asked the families whether they wanted the women's names made public. They didn't want to at the time, and never got around to telling the airline once they felt more comfortable with the idea.

"We felt whoever had to know, knew," Pegeen Cushing said.

As a result, Cushing and Folger are among the three unnamed "additional heroes" listed in a Senate bill proposing that Flight 93 passengers and crew be given the Congressional Gold Medal, Congress' "highest expression of national appreciation for distinguished achievements and contributions."

Not that the families have been overlooked. This past week, they were among those invited to a lunch and reception at the White House with President Bush and the White House staff.

At the reception, Robert Folger saw a Marine playing a piano. His mother loved Claude Debussy's "Claire de Lune" and he went up and asked that it be played.

"It was mother's favorite song," he said. "My mother would have appreciated it. It's not a loud song, not a happy song, it's a haunting song. It was just appropriate."

Marriage 1: Thomas Cushing b: Abt 1922 in Bayonne, Hudson, New Jersey d: 1988
Married: 1958