The ancient Victorian house where I was born was in turmoil. The year was 1912, and a month or so after I was born my mother was diagnosed with tuberculosis. The doctors told her to stop nursing me immediately and find a wet nurse. They recommended that she go to the Trudeau Sanitarium in the mountains of Saranac, New York.

When my mother learned the frightening news, Daddy was in Canada on a fishing trip. She needed him desperately, and the only way to reach him was to send telegram. She wired; "COME HOME. I NEED YOU. ANNA."

Dad and a local fishing guide were deep in the Canadian wilds. A messenger had to be sent to track them. When my father finally got the telegram, he hiked to the nearest railroad, his mind filled with apprehension. During the long trip back to New Jersey, he paced up and down the Pullman car, wondering what the message could mean. Were the children alright? What could have happened to make her send such an urgent message? It was days before he got back to Madison.

As a new infant, I knew nothing of my mother's departure for Saranac, but three or four years later some people and events stand out in my memory. It seemed to me that unfamiliar ladies were constantly arriving or departing. A family friend or relative would move into the guestroom, bringing suitcases and hatboxes and a flurry of commotion. She was supposed to be in charge, but she would usually talk to me in silly baby talk, and before I could get used to her, she'd be leaving, and someone new would come. It was disconcerting, and my brother, Yeaman and I began to feel insecure.

My memory of those ladies is just a vague blur of tall, distracted figures in white shirt waists and floor length dark skirts that rustled as they hurried about.

While we were living in that old Victorian house, my parents were having their permanent home built up on Crescent Drive. I suppose that whenever Mother was allowed to come home, and was feeling well enough, she and Daddy would drive up the hill to see their dream taking shape. It must have been thrilling to watch the brick house they had planned together going up on the ten acres Dad had acquired.

When he first met my mother, Dad was a graduate of Princeton Law School, working for his two uncles, in the real estate firm of Condict and Condict.

"Where did you meet Mother?" I asked him years later.

"In church," he chuckled, "She was wearing the most outrageous hat that I'd ever seen, and I just had to meet her!"

That was the beginning of the courtship. Mother was beautiful and witty, and Dad was wealthy, so people in Madison thought it was an ideal match, but eventually her illness came between them.

I remember the wide veranda surrounding the old house in Madison. On summer evenings my brother, Yeaman and I would sit out there on the creaky porch swing, waiting for the lamp lighter. He was an old man in baggy trousers, who would shuffle slowly from one lamp post to the next, lighting the gas street lights with a lighter on a long pole.

"Is he coming yet?" I would ask my brother. "I can't see him yet, but a couple of street lamps are lit up the hill, . . . there goes another ... so he must be coming."

My feet couldn't touch the floor, but Yeaman was five years older, so he could push the swing back and forth as we waited for the evening ritual to begin. In the deepening twilight, a dim figure could soon be seen, shuffling along the sidewalk. At every lamp post he would stop and reach his pole up to the ornate glass globe at the top to ignite the gas. Then a tiny gleam of light would glow, growing brighter and brighter, like magic, until the entire globe was shining in the dusk. When the lamp lighter had gone on down the street, it was time for me to go in and get ready for bed.

When their new house was nearing completion, my poor mother was forced to retun to the Trudeau Sanitarium for yet another "rest cure," so an important decision had to be reached. Mother would be too frail to handle the large new household as well as raise two active and insecure children. Someone had to be found to fill that role.

My father was fed up with the well-meaning friends and relatives who had tried to take charge, so Dad and Mother decided that they would have to hire a professional homemaker. Employment agencies were contacted, and interviews took place in Daddy's office in Jersey City. They knew it was going to be hard to find just the right person. She would have to be well-bred, in order to train us children in etiquette and table manners. And yet she had to be authorative enough to discipline us, as well as to direct the staff.

She would have to plan meals and keep accounts as well. Was there anyone in the world to fill such qualifications? There was. Her name was Mrs. Gladys Van Order, and she became a powerful influence in my life many years later.

I have been told that Gladys was recommended by mutual friends and relatives.They all knew of the predicament of our family, as well as that of Gladys Van Order,whose husband had deserted her. She'd been living with her mother-in-law, and taking charge of Mrs. Van Order's mansion and large staff of servants, so she was well qualified to run our household.

Gladys wasn't stylish or pretty, but she had an appealing look, with her tumble ofhoney colored hair, always escaping from her tortoise shell hairpins. Her skin was soft and pink, and smelled of Yardley's Old English lavender soap. Her eyes were the brightest blue I had ever seen.

It was easy for me to feel at home with Gladys, because she never acted nervous or upset like so many of the ladies who had come to stay with us, (and she didn't try to talk baby talk to me either!) I couldn't pronounce "Van Order," so I was soon calling her "Order." Her friends called her "Glad," which really suited her, because in her quiet way, she acted so cheerful that everyone felt happy to be with her.

Dad had a love affair with cars. Here's Yeaman holding the wheel.