An Acquaintance Remembers Bobby McIlvaine

Twenty Years Gone

In September, Jennifer Senior wrote about one family’s struggle to make sense of 9/11.

Thank you for your cover story about the family of Bobby McIlvaine. I remember him. In 2001, I worked as a writer and editor for Waters, the financial-technology magazine that hosted the conference at Windows on the World on September 11. (It was supposed to be a two-day conference, and I planned to attend on September 12.) He always sounded vibrant and enthusiastic on the phone, no matter when you spoke with him, and he was someone you could count on to follow things through to completion.

I knew many people who never came back from the conference that day. Many of them left behind young families, and many of them, like Bobby, barely had