Christine Anne Olender

Christine Olender dreamed of moving out of her parents' Northwest Side clothing store and into the wider fashion world.

As soon as she could, she transferred from Mundelein College to the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. She stayed in the Big Apple after graduating, even as she gradually moved out of the fashion business.

For the last five years, Olender was an assistant general manager at Windows on the World, the swank 106th-floor collection of restaurants, banquet rooms and convention centers near the top of the World Trade Center's north tower. She supervised the morning wait staff and oversaw the remodeling of dining rooms with a stylist's eye for fabrics and paint schemes.

"She had a knack for it," said her mother, Stella Olender, who with her husband, John, owns the Cragin-Hanson clothing store on West Fullerton Avenue, where Christine Olender had been steeped in the world of fashion since she was in the 5th grade.

Olender, 39, earned the praise of employers and employees at Windows on the World for her creativity and sunny disposition - particularly in light of the long hours she put in at the restaurant. She hung out with the kitchen and wait staff after work, wore a fireman's hat to blow the whistle for fire drills, and was a go-to person for the restaurant's management.

"She became the key troubleshooter and coordinator of all special projects," said general manager Glenn Vogt. "She had the broadest knowledge of every department at Windows on the World."

During her time off, Olender walked to the Columbus Avenue market with friends, shot around the city by subway and generally took advantage of big city amenities.

But the New York-a-phile was just as dedicated to her family, often popping in for surprise visits to Chicago, and her mother said she called home daily, sometimes twice. Stella Olender said she still looks at her answering machine light each day to see if her daughter has left a message.

The light has blinked since Sept. 11, but it has never been Christine.

Stella Olender and her son Conrad drove to New York in the wake of the terrorist attacks, and the family plans to return there around the middle of the month for a memorial service. A second memorial service will follow in Chicago toward the end of October, her mother decided, even though her daughter's body has not been found. "I guess we have to face reality, to a point," Stella Olender said. "You can't just prolong it. You have to have some closure."

"A little bit," she added.
Profile courtesy of THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE.


Yankee Doodle Sweetheart
But Christine A. Olender was a Yankee Doodle sweetheart, born on the Fourth of July. It was her best day. But when she grew up, it was her worst ‹ the only time when the petite, long-haired, effervescent former pompom girl, elected homecoming queen for Archbishop Weber High School, an all-boys Catholic school in her native Chicago, felt a little bit lonely.

When she moved to the Upper West Side of New York, Miss Olender, 39, discovered that the Fourth was the day when New Yorkers fled town. Even the bakery was closed. So she and a friend who had the same birthday, Melissa Trumbull, would make sure to order Miss Olender's favorite birthday treat ‹ strawberry shortcake ‹ a day in advance. Then the two of them put candles on the cake, got a bottle of Champagne from Windows on the World, where Miss Olender was assistant to the general manager, and celebrated.

Part of the ritual was a call from Miss Olender's mother, Stella. Don't worry about being left behind on your birthday, Miss Olender's mother would croon. "You're my little firecracker."

But Miss Olender, known for being practical in all things except shoes, did not sing the George M. Cohan song. "Christine was way too cool for that," Ms. Trumbull said.