Person

Deora Frances Bodley

Passenger of Flight 93
Deora Frances Bodley

Quick Facts
Significance:
Flight 93 Passenger
Date of Birth:
04/08/1981
Date of Death:
09/11/2001

Age: 20
Hometown: San Diego, California
Occupation: Student, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California
Reason for travel: Returning from visit with friends

Deora Frances Bodley of San Diego, California was the youngest person aboard Flight 93. A junior at Santa Clara University, Bodley loved children and tutored in an afterschool program. Bodley was studying French and psychology, aspiring to become a child psychologist. Remembered as independent and introspective, Bodley loved her family and enjoyed reading and writing. On September 11, she was flying home from a visit with friends in New Jersey. She was survived by her mother, father, step mother, and a sister.

"She’s the kind of gal, she would walk into a room and people would notice her, whether they knew her or not. You know, she had that kind of presence where, like, the room lit up when she walked in. And she, she was a, she was not self-centered. She was very outside of herself. She was very comfortable in being interested in other people. [...] She was very comfortable with herself in knowing how she felt about things and she knew where she stood. But she was very eloquent in describing her position. She was very accepting and open of other people’s views on whatever they may have been talking about. So, people found it very easy to, to be with her." [1]

-Deborah Borza, mother

left image shows a girl wearing blue eyeshadow and blue jacket smiling at the camera. Right image shows two young children and mother smiling.

Left: Deora Frances Bodley. FLNI-00863. Right: Deora (left) with her mother and sister. FLNI-00863. 

"Deora was always a helper. She liked things to be peaceful. She liked people to get along. She was a very social child, in a good way. She just liked people in general. And she loved animals and she loved children." [2]

-Nancy Bodley-Mangum, Stepmother 

A photo of a tan uniform shirt and a photo of a badge. Right image shows Deora and mother smiling with a giraffe in the background.
Left: Deora's uniform shirt and badge from the San Diego Zoo. FLNI 9220 FLNI 9119. Right: Deora (left) with her mother at the San Diego Zoo. FLNI-00863. 

"And she did an internship at the zoo and she, she loved that. [...] She had an interest in biology. One of the things she did at the zoo, she, there is a way that the San Diego Zoo tags the ears of the hoofed animals and they notch them in a way that is their numbering system. So she drew the ears of all the different hoofed animals and did the legend for the numbering system. So [...] in further training of other interns that may come in, they can open up the book and they could use the diagram. Oh, if its two notches on this ear and a notch on the other side that, you know, that is the number 100, or what, whatever the numbering system was. So she was responsible for creating that documentation."[3]  - Deborah Borza

Footnotes

[1] Flight 93 National Memorial Oral History Collection/OH 11
[2] Flight 93 National Memorial Oral History Collection/OH 288
[3] Flight 93 National Memorial Oral History Collection/OH 11

Tags

Last updated: January 22, 2026