Wendy Faulkner

For more than a year, one of Wendy Faulkner's closest friends tried to get her to come work for her. But Faulkner resisted. She didn't want to uproot a happy life in Ohio with her husband and two girls.

Yet nine months ago, her friend had an offer Faulkner couldn't refuse. She took a job as a vice president in information systems for Aon Risk Services in Chicago.

Since December, Faulkner had been commuting from her Mason, Ohio, home to Chicago, flying home for long weekends. That was about to end, as her family was negotiating on a house in Naperville and planned to be together soon.

All of that changed when Faulkner, 47, came to New York for a business meeting on the 104th floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center Sept. 11. Her husband, Lynn Faulkner, hasn't heard from her since.

Years ago, Wendy Faulkner started collecting names from her missionary parents of families in poverty-stricken countries. She would then fill up boxes of clothing and goods and send them off to those families.

After learning of Wendy's death, one of the families who had received her boxes for years sent Faulkner's husband an e-mail, saying that the children would miss "Auntie Wendy's" boxes.

The message nudged a grieving Lynn Faulkner into action. "We just cannot let the final chapter of Wendy Faulkner's life be the fact that she was murdered," he said.

For that reason, Lynn Faulkner is establishing the Wendy Faulkner Memorial Children's Foundation.