Memorial Service Held for Woman Killed in Smoky Metro Tunnel

In many ways, Carol Glover was like hundreds of thousands of Washington-area commuters who ride the nation's second-busiest rail system.

Born in Washington, she spent more than 20 years working as a contractor for the federal government. A mother of two boys, she adored her three grandchildren. But unlike the other passengers onboard her yellow line train a week ago Monday, the 61-year-old Glover never made it home.

An electrical malfunction stopped the train she was riding and filled it with smoke while passengers waited to be rescued. More than 80 people were taken to the hospital, but Glover was overcome by the smoke, and though fellow passengers tried to revive her, she died.

On Monday, Glover was remembered at a memorial service at her Washington church, just blocks from the U.S. Capitol. One of the men who tried to revive her was there and was given a round of applause.

"We're all a family now because of this,'' said her son Anthony Glover II outside the church.

But Glover, 33, said his mother wasn't just "another passenger'' on the train.

Carol Inman Glover was the second of four children. As a child, she loved to read, and on her first day of kindergarten she insisted on bringing her favorite Dr. Seuss book and a volume of the World Book Encyclopedia. She studied computer programing at Drexel University in Philadelphia, where she met her husband.

They raised two boys in the Washington suburb of Alexandria, Virginia. Glover was the den mother for her sons' Boy Scout troop and cheered on the sidelines of their football, soccer and basketball games.

Anthony Glover II, her older son, served for 13 years in the Marine Corps and went to Iraq three times. Her younger son, Marcus Glover, works for a Christian nonprofit in Washington. But she "had kids more than just the ones she birthed,'' Anthony Glover II said, explaining that his mother treated his friends like her own children. And when she became a grandmother "she just lost her little mind,'' he said.

Friends described Glover as a woman of deep faith, someone with a giant smile and a hug for everyone.

With her younger son, she enjoyed going to the movies and Nationals baseball games, her daughter-in-law Suzanne Glover said in an e-mail, adding that her mother-in-law often sent her "encouraging texts on motherhood and life.''

At work, she had just won the employee of the year award. But recently she was talking a lot about retirement, said her sister, Donna Perry.

Her mother, Corrine Inman, said there was more than one irony in her daughter's death. First, Glover died on the same day her father did more than 30 years ago. Her father died in a house fire, and both father and daughter died from breathing in smoke. Corrine Inman said her daughter's death made her think too about the expression: the light at the end of the tunnel.

"She was in a tunnel and she couldn't get out,'' Corrine Inman said of her daughter's last moments. "But I think Carol relaxed and realized everything was going to be OK. And when she woke up she was on the other side in the light.''