Chris was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on October 16, 1948.

Immigrating to the United States in 1949 with her French Canadian parents at the age of one Chris is a true example of the struggle and the achievement of women workers in the twentieth century labor union movement.

After arriving in Chicago with her family, Chris had to overcome the language barrier, and the process of assimilation into the English speaking education system. Because of her life choices and the political and social leanings of her family she found herself continually confronted with issues of social injustice in the United States. She is the oldest in a family of six girls.

In 1963, in the midst of the Post Trauma of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, she tried to take high school extracurricular activities and shop classes that only boys were allowed to take and was refused each time. Most time because of her passion for an answer to why girls could not take the classes, she was reprimanded and punished for persisting.

Two weeks after graduation in 1967, Chris was arrested on North Clark Street, in Chicago for holding a women’s hand and both were sentenced to five days in Cook County jail for disorderly conduct.

Claiming that this was the radicalizing moment in her life, she became obsessed with reading books about social and economic issues pertaining to women and homosexual justice and inequality. She went on to work as a gas station attendant after graduation, but wanted to be a carpenter.

She approached Carpenter Local 58 in 1970 and was refused entry into the union apprenticeship program because she was a girl. Until that point women in the construction trades were unheard of. Chris immediately opened a bar with a partner in 1970 called “Chez Ron,” located at 4210 North Lincoln Avenue. This was directly across the street from Carpenter Local 58; in plain view of all members that refused her entry to the carpentry apprenticeship. She remodeled the entire bar inside and out under the watchful eyes of most officers and members of local 58. 

This was the start of her critical evaluation of the Building Trades Labor Movement.

Chris worked at night for money to survive and during the day worked for Real Estate and home owners for free to teach herself the trade of carpentry from 1970 to 1974. During this time Chris pursued many other jobs but continued to pursue the carpentry trade.

In 1974 she started CJ Construction & Remodeling Company, encouraged other women to join the construction trade, and advocated community members to support women to enter the construction trades. She continued to work as a non-union carpenter and sub-contractor for many companies. She worked and educated herself at night in other endeavors completing a degree in drafting and working for Union Special Company for six months which gave her the opportunity to custom design a part used in their sewing machines today.

By 1979 she was one of the first women accepted to the carpenters union as a construction worker in the Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters Union Local 58. This was the same Local that refused her entry in 1970. Chris was one of the first to start to break gender barriers in the carpenters union in the United States. An article was written up about Chris in the Chicago Tribune 1979 as being one of the first women to join this trade union.

One of the first organizations to support women in construction was Sunbow Foundation Inc. Chris became Director of Construction and Training for this organization from1983 until 1986 and was also part of the Board of Directors for a short while.

Chicago Women in Trades was up and running by then and Chris continued to volunteer her time for this organization training, lecturing, and education of the young women wanting to enter the construction trades and continues to do so today.

Chris was the very first women appointed to a position as Union Carpentry Instructor. For over twenty-one years she served as Carpentry Instructor at the Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters as a Residential/Commercial Carpentry Instructor and helped in the development of the curriculum now used throughout the ten apprenticeship schools.

In 1990 Chris taught herself computer technology and software. She started her own home business in 1993 called “A Quality Concept,” selling, repairing, and software training. She has since advanced to Website Development and administration, catering to non-for-profit organizations at a reduced rate.

She continues to find ways to keep herself active and involved in Chicago labor movement and education of young women. Chris started a newsletter called the “Ledger Board,” in 1993, but could not afford the mailings. By 1995 she developed a website called “Advocates for Sisters in the Brotherhood” to market the “Ledger Board” newsletter free of charge to give voice to the sister carpenters in the Midwest.

By 2004, Chris was elected by her priers to represent the sister carpenters as Chairwoman of a nine woman Sisters in the Brotherhood (SIB) committee. It was the start of the unofficial Sisters in the Brotherhood of Carpenters in the Chicago area. The Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters (CRCC) did not approve of this unofficial committee starting without the then CRCC President Earl J. Oliver’s permission. This was seen as their job, not ours. They complained that we were moving too fast! This was the same President that said to my face quote, “I would rather die than see a woman appointed as an organizer!” Well he got his wish…Earl J. Oliver died of a massive heart attack in 2005.

By then over a hundred women were participating at the unofficial SIB monthly meetings.

This action by the unofficial committee catapulted the new CRCC President Martin C. Umlauf into official appointments in 2005. Five woman were appointed to represent the sister carpenters in the newly formed eight-one county jurisdiction. The sisters were on their way to having a voice in their union.

CRCC also appointed three executive brothers to the official SIB women’s committee being the first in our union to do so. They however accidently called themselves Sisters of the Brotherhood, SOB for short, duly named by them in the first letter ever addressing only the sister carpenters in the CRCC jurisdiction. An explanation was given to her that their secretary made the mistake. They made over one hundred “T” shirts with the same mistake, passed out at the second International Sisters in the Brotherhood Convention in 2005. Chris thought this was hilarious!

In May 2008, Chris developed another website and sister group for ALL building trade women across America and Canada called “Sisters in the Trades-Unite Now!” to further equality and social justice in the building trades for women. She developed curriculum and gave classes free of charge at Chicago Women in Trades workshop, to further building trade sister’s education in Department of Labor Union Member Rights. 

In June 2008 Chris joined the Coalition of Labor Union Women-Chicago Chapter (CLUW) as a member and has actively participated in various agenda’s pursued by the Chicago and National Chapters. Chris has made the Coalition of Labor Union Women-Chicago Chapter her new home for perusing the labor movement’s agenda for the continued battle for women’s equality and social justice.

Chris is was active in volunteering her time between Human Rights Campaigns, LCCP, GLBT, Working Women’s History Project, Affinity Community Services, Howard Brown Center, Rebuilding Together-Metro Chicago, AFL-CIO Women & Working Families, Teamsters, political campaigns and many more too numerous to list here. 

At the age of sixty she has published one book in 2007 called “An Angel for You: My Life in Poems, Verses and Short Stories,” and is in the planning stages to publish a second book called “Abducted Alien: A True Story of United States Immigration and My Life,” to be released 2009. She currently published another book called "Above All A Tradeswomen in 2022. Also "Above All A Tradeswomen", published in 2022.

The one website still active http://www.authorsden.com/christheabductedalien and called “Twilight Zone USA-Readers Group (no longer active) where she wrote monthly newsletters with critical, sometimes controversial commentary about politics and labor unions,” with over one hundred articles to date and over 195,420 hits for different articles read by people logging on to the website. The websites also include information about the two books written and published by her.

Having retired from her position as CRCC-Carpentry Instructor on March 01, 2009, Chris retired to Quebec, Canada in 2019.

She continues to look forward to following activities in the labor movement, politics and the continued fight for equality and social justice for women and LGBT members.