Firefighter
Robert Foti
Ladder 7
Memorial
Service was held
on October 6th, 2001
Firefighter 'Was Always Helping People'
November 26, 2001 Robert Joseph Foti and his wife, Mary Grace, were driving
home to Albertson from Old Westbury Gardens in August when they spotted
an elderly
woman in an old jalopy, stranded with a flat tire. Foti got out of his car
and spent two hours prying off the flat and replacing it with the spare. After
he finished, the woman called him an angel and offered him $10 for his services.
Foti refused, but the woman insisted. He took the money, but snuck it into
her purse when she wasn't looking, his wife recalled recently. "That was just
the type of guy he was," she said. "He was always helping people." Foti's mother-in-law,
Irene Tastor of Melville, said after seeing the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
last year with his family, Foti drove to her home, mashed the potatoes, carved
the turkey and cleaned up after dinner. "He was always there," Tastor said.
Foti, 42, a member of Ladder Co. 7, Engine Co. 16 in Manhattan, was last heard
from at 8:40 a.m. on Sept. 11, when he told his wife he was getting ready to
leave work at 9 a.m., after working an overnight shift. "They just got married
in May," Tastor said. The two met in 1995. Mary Grace was stopped at a red
light, and so was Foti, who was sitting in the back of a firetruck. "I waved
to him, and he told me to go to 29th Street," his wife said. "I went, and he
took me out to lunch the next day. We actually met on Dec. 5, 1995. He became
a firefighter on Dec. 5, 1988." In his spare time, Foti liked to fish and go
deep-sea diving, his wife said. The couple spent time in Jamaica last June,
she said. "He had a really good time. He took advantage of everything. Cliff
diving, water skiing, diving. I just watched. He was very adventurous and outgoing.
He liked to take risks. I guess that probably explains why he became a firefighter." His
wife said the time that has passed since the attack has done little to help
her grief. "The more time that has passed, the harder it gets, the longer it
has been since I've heard his voice," she said. "Things that were clear aren't
so clear anymore. They say it has to get harder before it gets better. I guess
that's where I am right now." -- Nick Iyer (Newsday)
Newsday
Article