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Staying in Touch, Always

Everywhere Kelly Ann Booms lived, she made good friends, which is what you would expect of a lively, outgoing girl, the oldest in a family of four children. But throughout her childhood, she also made a point of staying in touch as she moved from Colorado to Michigan, Australia to Ohio, where her family still lives outside Cincinnati.

"She was very strong willed," said her father, Robert Booms Sr. "It was her strong personality that really made her keep up with her friends."

Ms. Booms got her first real job in Boston, working for PriceWaterhouse in 1999, soon after graduating from Miami University in Ohio with a double major in accounting and finance. Last summer she was notified that she had passed certified public accountant exams. On Sept. 11, she boarded American Airlines Flight 11 for California, where she had been sent on temporary assignment. She was 24 years old.

In Boston, as elsewhere, she had become involved in charity work, helping out underprivileged families at Christmastime. She also loved sports, and had recently taken up the guitar. "She was very ambitious, very outgoing," her father said. "When she was in a room, you knew she was there. She influenced a lot of people in a lot of ways."

Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on November 29, 2001.


More than 700 people attended the weekend memorial service for Kelly Ann Booms in her parents' hometown of Blue Ash, Ohio. After the packed service, tables, chairs, and food--many gifts of food--appeared at the Booms' home. Hundreds of people followed.

"We were overwhelmed. There were people I didn't even know who were there," said Richard L. Booms Sr., Kelly Ann's father. "It's just amazing what people are doing for us. You don't even ask--things you don't even think of--they're just done."

Booms, a 24-year-old employee of PricewaterhouseCoopers in Boston, was aboard American Airlines Flight 11, bound for California on a four-week assignment in Long Beach..

As the community rallied around the Booms family into the evening, friends from Kelly Ann's childhood in Michigan and high school years in Australia remembered her as vivacious, strong-willed and caring.

At her parents' home, the procession of well-wishers didn't end until after midnight.

Profile courtesy of THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE.