I honor Paul Hamilton Geier

Paul Hamilton Geier


Paul Geier, 36, a broker at Cantor Fitzgerald LP, had forgotten his cell phone last Tuesday, when the World Trade Center blew up. He was on the 105th floor of the north tower.

He was among 700 of the company’s employees who are thought to have perished in the terrorist attack.

On Friday, Geier was remembered by his cousin, Larry Goldman of Hollywood, and his wife, Jodi, during a prayer service at Temple Beth El in Hollywood.

The couple said Geier, who lived in Farmingdale, N.Y., has a 5-year-old daughter, Jessica, who has suggested, “Maybe my daddy just broke his leg.”

Geier had his share of difficulties in life. His mother died when he was young, he went through a difficult divorce, and he struggled financially, the Goldmans said.

“He said: ‘I have no good luck,’” Larry Goldman recalled.

But things had started to improve for Geier recently. After living for a brief time in Boynton Beach, he returned to New York a year ago to be with his second wife, Eleanor.

About that time he began working for Cantor, a bond brokerage. Cantor was among the hardest-hit companies with offices in the building.

-- Megan O’Matz (The South Florida Sun-Sentinel) September 19, 2001

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Paul Geier's mother died when he was 22 and his sister Jeanne Kelly was 17.

"Paul took good care of me throughout some really tough times," she wrote in an e-mail message from London.

"I really wasn't in the mood to go to my prom, but he encouraged me, bought me the dress, came home early from work to see me, and gave me spending money because he wanted me to try to be happy! I know it might sound silly since it was so long ago, but how many 22-year-olds do that for their sisters?"

Another sister, Kathy Healy, remembers how her brother's even temper got the family through a boat trip to Manhattan, when their 39-foot trawler ran out of gas and hit rough seas. "The refrigerator and the microwave fell over," she said. "He kept my husband calm."

He used to bicycle from his home in Farmingdale to Massapequa, arriving at her door on weekends.

"Since October, I have a pansy growing right on the doorstep, through the snow and everything," she said. "It stayed there. I always feel like it's a sign."

Mr. Geier, 36, who leaves a wife and two young daughters, was one of two brokers not fired from his 22-person desk at eSpeed the Friday before Sept. 11, Ms. Healy said.

Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on March 10, 2002.