Vanessa "Van" Dale Raven Sterling, was the main character and the lead heroine in the now-defunct American soap opera Love of Life.
[1] Vanessa, or "Van" as she was more commonly called, was the older of the two daughters born to Will and Sarah Dale in the fictional community of Barrowsville, New York.
After her father died, Van made frequent trips back to her hometown from New York City, where she had moved, to keep her widowed mother updated on what her sister was up to.
She was an art school graduate and worked at a television show advertising agency, all the while keeping an eye on her selfish sister and giving her nephew, Ben "Beanie" Harper the love his mother denied him.
A woman named Tammy Forrest (Scottie McGregor; Ann Loring) hated her for replacing her on a show she once hosted, but eventually grew to like her, because Van helped her kick her drinking habit that got her fired from her job in the first place.
She met her first husband, former FBI agent turned attorney Paul Raven, after he helped her sister get acquitted on a murder charge.
When his sister in-law, Meg, needed help getting her fortune back from her scheming husband, Jack Andrews, he went, with the best intentions in mind, and flew down to Mexico to deal with him.
He introduced her to a friend of his, Bruce Sterling, a teacher at a boys' school called Winfield Academy in the fictional Upstate community of Rosehill, New York.
Link eventually married Van's old friend, Tammy Forrest, and were happy, despite Maggie's conniving twin sister, Kay (also played by Joan Copeland, this time wearing a blond wig), showing up.
By then, Van and Bruce had gained new neighbors and best friends in Charles Lamont (Jonathan Russell) and his wife, Diana (Diane Rousseau).
Diana with assistant district attorney, Jamie Rollins (Ray Wise) and then when that relationship failed, she went into a convent, realizing that religion would give her the comfort that marriage couldn't; and Charles married a woman named Felicia Flemming (Pamela Lincoln), who was his grandson Johnny Prentiss's schoolteacher.
The letter, meant for Meg, was intercepted by Van's until that time, unknown niece, Cal Aleata, who was like her half-brother, Ben, in that she had been denied love by her mother.
Bruce, Sarah and Van welcomed Cal with open arms, giving the lonely girl the love that she had craved and sorely needed.
Not long after Cal moved to Rosehill, Meg did come back, and sadly, she was the same as she was before, amoral and always lusting after attractive shady men, much like the old days.
They moved into a new house, which had been owned by a professor Timothy McCauley (Sheppherd Strudwick), and he stayed on and married Van's mother, Sarah.