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Engaged on a Ski Slope

He was a rising star in the Toronto financial world, but David Barkway, a managing director of BMO Nesbitt Burns, the Bank of Montreal's investment firm, was not all business. He was known on Bay Street in Toronto for his determination to improve his golf game, his cigars and his practical jokes. Colleagues would return from lunch to find a flashing message on their computer screen that was impossible to delete. He became engaged in 1996 on a ski slope, presenting a diamond ring to Cindy McLennan after they had both taken a spill in the snow.

Mrs. Barkway, who is pregnant with the couple's second child, accompanied her husband on his final business trip to New York and was on her way to SoHo when the World Trade Center was attacked. Mr. Barkway, 34, had an appointment at Cantor Fitzgerald.

If the baby is a girl, Mrs. Barkway said, she will have to name her Zoe. "That's the name my husband wanted," she said, "I wasn't that keen on it, but he's going to get his way."

In Greek, she recently learned, Zoe means "life."

Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on October 26, 2001.