Yvonne and Emily Selke: 'wonderful' women killed on Germanwings flight

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/25/yvonne-emily-selke-mother-daughter-american-victims

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Yvonne Selke

Yvonne Selke had a passion for life and travel, and the respect and admiration of colleagues at the government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, where she was a long-term employee.

She was married to Raymond Selke and the couple lived in a large, detached house surrounded by trees on the outskirts of Nokesville, Virginia, in bucolic farming country between Washington DC and the Shenandoah National Park.

Related: Germanwings crash investigators review cockpit recordings found on black box

Speaking to the Guardian, her husband emphatically described his wife’s passion as “life”, with a particular love of traveling with her daughter, Emily, with whom she was flying from Barcelona on the Germanwings flight when it crashed.

Selke worked at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the satellite mapping branch of the Pentagon.

A longtime colleague at Booz Allen Hamilton, Clinton Holt, a US air force veteran who had retired from the contracting firm, wrote on Twitter: “I lost a long time friend in the Germanwings crash … my heart is aching and your prayers for the family are appreciated.”

I lost a long time friend in the Germanwings crash this morning. My heart is aching, and your prayers for the family are appreciated.

He posted the airline’s logo, in grey and black shading for mourning, on his Facebook page in tribute to his ex-colleague and her daughter.

Selke had spent her whole career with Booz Allen Hamilton and had a reputation as a dedicated and loyal staff member, but also a very friendly and generous one who brought cookies in for co-workers.

The word that kept being repeated about Selke, 58, was “wonderful”.

Her husband described her as “wonderful to a fault”.

And Betty Thompson, the chief personnel officer at Booz Allen called her a “wonderful co-worker”.

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is based in Springfield, Virginia, and supplies high-level mapping but also strategic geographical intelligence to offices ranging from that of Barack Obama to those of the US military and civilian clients.

“Every death is a tragedy, but seldom does a death affect us all so directly and unexpectedly,” the agency’s director, Robert Cardillo, said of her.

Emily Selke

Emily Selke, 22, was a music lover and graduate of the renowned Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design that is part of Drexel University in Philadelphia.

According to her father, Raymond Selke, she wanted to pursue a career in the entertainment industry in the area of pop music event production.

She was a sorority sister at the university and tributes from friends describing Emily as “incredible” and pictures of her depicting a happy young woman in her prime, beaming and laughing, began circulating on Wednesday.

Emily and Yvonne Selke had been traveling together in Spain when they took the Germanwings flight that crashed on Tuesday.

Related: What happened to Germanwings flight 4U 9525?

Facebook posts from her sorority, Gamma Sigma Sigma Zeta, pointed out that she was known for “putting others before herself”.

She was the vice-president of membership for the sorority, wrote music review blog posts and had worked with the Pittsburgh Fringe Festival shortly before graduating in 2013.

A friend of Emily’s, Alyse Weaver, wrote on her Facebook page: “Emily, it’s hard to believe that you were taken away from us so suddenly … you will never know how much of an impact you made on my life and so many of the other Zeta sisters. You are a beautiful soul, so down-to-earth and interested, and bright, and just all around one cool chick.”

Another friend, Michael Rodino, wrote that he was “without words” at the loss of his friend Emily, according to the Daily Mail.

Like her mother, Emily was described by friends and family as wonderful.

Rodino said she was always “wonderfully concerned about her friends” and agreed with the sentiment from her sorority, calling the young woman “selfless”.

“There is no way to fill the void,” he said. “Except to do the best by her.”