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Jane Folger - Hero Of Flight 93Back | Next |
 Retired bank officer, 73, Bayonne, N.J.; sons, Robert, Thomas, Michael; daughter, Kathleen Kulik. She was traveling to San Francisco on vacation with her sister-in-law, Patricia Cushing.
If she could have afforded it, Jane Folger would have moved across the Hudson River from her Bayonne, N.J. home to set up house in New York City. Manhattan drew her like a magnet. She always approached New York with wide-eyed adoration and could never get enough of the stores, the theater, Greenwich Village, or the World Trade Center complex. A notoriously finicky shopper who would spend hours browsing through clothing shops only to return home empty-handed, Folger never had that problem when it came to cultural events. The cheaper the event, the better. She was adept at ferreting out free poetry readings, lectures and concerts. Folger had learned to scrimp and save as a housewife raising six children. One relative joked that she was the greatest accountant who ever lived, making do on her husband's Post Office salary. When her children were old enough, Folger went to work. A high school graduate, she started at the bottom of the ladder as a bank teller; 25 years later, in 1994, she retired as a bank officer. Dealing with precision and numbers suited the meticulous Folger. She kept the same discipline at home, saving 10 years' worth of receipts and phone bills. By age 73, Folger had endured a difficult life. In addition to going through a painful divorce, she lost one son in Vietnam and another to AIDS in 1994. She was his caretaker, and his death changed her, plunging her into an angry mood. In the aftermath of that difficult period, she began to grow close to her late brother's wife, Patricia Cushing, who lived four blocks away. They shared the same tastes in conservative classic clothing and enjoyed cashing in together on the benefits of senior citizenship. Cushing's soft-spoken attitude provided a calming influence on the nervous Folger, and soon the duo became partners on many jaunts, including Flight 93. Folger instilled a love of New York in her grandchildren. Pair by pair, she would take the six of them on tours to the city, introducing them to her favorite haunts. After Folger's death, her hometown newspaper ran a picture of her and two of her granddaughters doing what she loved best, playing tour guide. The photo showed them standing atop the World Trade Center. |
