MIAMI (MCT) — Kathleen Mary Mulcahy Miskell began step-dancing when she was 3 years old, volunteered for Habitat for Humanity, worked in orphanages in Honduras and organized youth Irish football leagues. She helped teach middle school children, was studying for a master’s degree, was married and just bought a new home.

She was the kind of woman who wanted to taste everything, said her father, James Mulcahy, a retired widower from Manchester, Conn., who helped raise Kathleen, 28, and her older sister, Erin, 30, after their mother died 12 years ago.