Victims of Metro Crash Remembered

Tonight the family and friends of those who died are giving us a clearer picture of the people who were lost.

The fatal victims from Monday's Metro disaster came from all walks of life but shared a fate none of them could have foreseen when they stepped on board the Red Line Monday.

One of those passengers, Mary Doolittle, got on the Red Line at the Woodley Park Metro station near her apartment building on Connecticut Avenue. Doolittle was 59 years old and was remembered fondly by her longtime neighbor Sammie Whitingellis who said, "It's hard to believe when somebody goes to work in the morning and they don't get to come home. And it's just tragic."

• CLICK HERE TO VIEW A PHOTO GALLERY OF THE VICTIMS OF THE DEADLY METRO TRAIN CRASH

In Upper Marlboro, Maryland the family of 23 year old LaVonda Nikki King remembered her as a hard working young woman who had just started a new career as a makeup artist.

Her step grandmother said Nikki had a bright future ahead of her saying, "It's in Gods hands, and sometimes I asked the question why Nikki you know? She had so much going for her. It's tough and life just cuts it off. "

The family of the 42-year-old Metro train operator Jeanice McMillan says she had been working as a train operator since December.

Her mother Betty says her daughter took great pride in her job, ironing her uniform every night.

Betty McMillan says she told her daughter to say a prayer everyday at the start of her shift, adding,
"I'm going to miss my Jeanice, she was a very, very outgoing person and a loving, loving person"

Here is more information on the victims who have been identified so far from the Associated Press:

Retired National Guard general among train victims

The victims of the Metro train collision in Washington included the recently retired commanding general of the D.C. National Guard and his wife; two working moms; a retired teacher who was working as a substitute, and a woman who worked with nurses around the world.

Here is what family members, co-workers and others had to say about them:

Jeanice McMillan, who was at the controls of a transit train that plowed into another, would have done anything to prevent the accident, friends and relatives said.

She was a devoted mom to her college-age son and while she had struggled financially, she loved her job ferrying commuters and tourists around the nation's capital, those who knew her said.

"If she could have stopped the train, she would have done everything in her power," said Joanne Harrison, a neighbor at McMillan's apartment building in Springfield, Va.

McMillan, 42, a Buffalo, N.Y., native, moved to the Washington area about a dozen years ago, her family said. She worked for the U.S. Postal Service for several years before joining the Metropolitan Washington Area Transit Authority in 2007 as a bus driver. Officials say she became a train operator in March.

VIDEO STORY ON JEANICE MCMILLIAN

Maj. Gen. David F. Wherley Jr., 62, was the retired commanding general of the D.C. National Guard.

His wife Ann, 62, was also killed in the collision. They lived in Washington.

U.S. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton wrote in an e-mail that she developed a close relationship with Wherley, especially during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as D.C. National Guard members were transformed from weekend warriors to Army troops in battle.

Wherley worked on deployment and return ceremonies for troops, funding for Guard members' tuition and afterschool activities conducted by the Guard.

Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty said of Wherley: "He was as fine a public servant, as dedicated to the United States of America ... as anyone I have ever met."

VIDEO STORY ON THE WHERLEY'S

Fifty-nine-year-old Mary Doolittle of Washington, who went by Mandy, was an upbeat person with an irrepressible joy and a great sense of humor. She was drawn to health care to support nursing around the world, according to her supervisor, Jeanne Floyd of the American Nurses Credentialing Center.

After working in Italy for several years and graduating from Rice University, the senior international specialist had been at the credentialing center for the last eight years working on the association's outreach to the international community.

"She talked constantly about the colleagues who would write to her on a daily basis from around the world asking for her assistance. She thought it was her duty and honor to help this population, many of whom are underserved in their country," Floyd said.

Dennis Hawkins' sister, Helen Paulette Hall, said that "when you saw Dennis, you saw a smiling face."

She said the 64-year-old retired teacher and D.C. resident worked as a substitute at Whittier Elementary School in Washington. Although he did not have children, the sons and daughters of his seven siblings were close to him.

Hawkins, a graduate of Western Michigan University, taught all his adult life, Hall said.

"He was a very religious man, family