Boston.com -- HARTFORD, Conn. -- A Stamford native who was working as a civilian employee for the U.S. Army in Iraq was killed in a mortar attack last weekend, the Department of Defense announced Wednesday.

Barbara Heald, 60, died when a mortar hit the Republic National Palace in Baghdad on Saturday, the agency said. She had been working for the Project and Contracting Office, which is involved in rebuilding Iraq's public works.

Heald, of Falls Church, Va., volunteered to serve in Iraq after retiring from the Department of Agriculture, said her sister, Margaret Geis of Yuma, Ariz.

"She had a very strong sense of patriotism," Geis told The Sun of Yuma. "She had a tremendous curiosity. What she didn't know when she got over there she made it her business to find out."

A friend of five years remembered Heald as someone who headed to Iraq to help make history.

"I was very surprised she was going there, but she really believed in trying to rebuild Iraq," Gabriele Mecca of Odenton, Md., told The Associated Press Wednesday. "She felt reasonably safe in that environment, but everyone knew how dangerous it was. She wanted to be a part of history."

In a statement Wednesday, Gov. M. Jodi Rell said, "Once again we mourn someone from Connecticut who has paid the ultimate price to help bring freedom and democracy to the world. We honor her memory and rededicate ourselves to the ideals she served."

Heald was the second civilian worker from Connecticut killed in Iraq since the beginning of the war in March 2003. Eric Miner, 44, of Brooklyn, an employee of the U.S. security firm DynCorp, died in October 2004 when two bombs exploded in a tightly guarded area in Baghdad called the Green Zone.

Heald was the 24th person with Connecticut ties killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since March 2002.