The Guiding Light 1956

-1/1/56 thru 1/31/56. Elsie continues to cause havoc in the Bauer home. Jim quits Cedars and Dick thinks Lila is a bad influence on him. Dick lays into Laura for her controlling machinations and says he is no longer her son. Laura asks Marie for help to win back Dick and Marie refuses. After the eye doctor gives Marie a good report and tells her she no longer needs to be in California, Marie has to decide whether to go back to NYC and it causes her to face whatever feelings she has for Dick. Bert strikes up a friendship with Marie to get the scoop on the Dick/Kathy situation. Mike becomes defiant as his hatred for his grandmother and baby brother grows. He resents Elsie’s favoritism towards Ed. 

-2/2/56 thru 2/28/56. Marie starts to paint Mike’s portrait. Mike becomes more neurotic and defiant. Jim proposes to Lila but she doesn’t want to ever get married. Papa sternly rebukes Elsie for trying to mother Ed and for rejecting Mike. Papa tells Bill that Elsie should move out. Bert tries to get Mike to stop seeing an older friend, Jock Baker. Papa puts the foot down with Bill to put the foot down with Bert to put the foot down with Elsie. Mike runs away from home. Marie uses a charcoal sketch she had made of Mike to give to the police to aid in their search for him. The police question Jock Baker. 

-3/1/56 thru 3/31/56. The Bauers are frantic because Mike is missing and Bert fears the worst. Though Jock had withheld the information from the police due to his promise to Mike not to say anything, he tells his dad that Mike ran away due to his grandmother. Mike is lost in the Sierra foothills as Bert starts to feel guilty for the way she treated him. Bill blames Elsie’s favoritism of Ed over Mike and his own passivity about the situation. Marie remembers Mike talking about wanting to go camping in the Sierra foothills and informs the police. Mike is found by a search team and taken to the hospital where he asks to see Papa Bauer. Meta stops Elsie from going to the hospital and lays into her for how she’s treated Mike, blaming Elsie for Mike’s running away from home. Bill wants to introduce a bachelor work associate named Mark Holden to Meta. 

-4/2/56 thru 4/30/56. Elsie is moving back to Arizona. She and Mike make amends first. Bill brings Mark with him to Elsie’s going away dinner. Jim and Marie make Lila go for a chest x-ray even though she’s scared of the results. The results come back that Lila has tuberculosis. Meta is mad at Bill because she thinks he is trying to set her up with Mark. Since Lila’s sister died in a TB sanitarium, Lila is scared to go to one. Jim gets Lila to  check into the TB quarantine wing of Cedars for 6 months to a year so that Jim can keep an eye on her. Dan Clark, who Kathy has been seeing in New York City while staying with Helen, proposes but Kathy declines.

-5/1/56 thru 5/31/56. Lila gets scared and stir crazy in quarantine and starts to freak out. Helen tries to get Kathy to send Meta a Mother’s Day card. Kathy remembers old resentments towards Meta and admits her fears that Robin is starting to treat Kathy the way Kathy treated Meta. Jim figures out that Lila’s cynicism about marriage comes from her blaming her brother-in-law for her sister’s death. Laura comes back to town and tries to reconcile with Dick. Mark and Meta both agree to enjoy each other’s companionship but leave marriage off the table. Papa thinks Meta should marry Mark but Meta tells him she’s not interested in marrying anyone after Joe. Papa and Meta visit the graves of Mama Bauer and Joe on Memorial Day. Bert hopes Mike never has to go to war.

-6/1/56 thru 6/29/56. Marie leaves to go visit Mrs. Laury in NYC and her family in Iowa, not sure if she’ll come back to Los Angeles. Papa also goes to NYC to visit Trudy and Clyde. Marie visits Kathy in New York and they discuss the past and which of them might want to be with Dick. Bill, Meta and a tearful Bert, who realizes her son is growing up and leaving her for the first time, say goodbye to Michael as he gets on the train to summer camp on his own. 

-7/2/56 thru 7/31/56. Mark tells Meta that if he ever did get married it would be with someone like her, if not her. Meta tells Marie that she knows how she feels about Dick and Marie confesses. Dick tries to find out why Lila has had an emotional setback this month and Lila admits July was when she lost her sister and her fear is overtaking her. Bert learns that her mother has met a man and may marry again. Meta, after hearing the news that Elsie is open to remarriage, decides to finally get rid of Joe’s old chair. Mark proposes to Meta and she accepts. 

-8/1/56 thru 8/31/56. Bill regrets introducing Mark and Meta as he thinks Mark is toying with her. He also thinks that Elsie's new fiancé, Albert, might be after Elsie’s money. Mark flies to New York City to see his brother Fred and then to Colorado to see his sister Alice to let them know of his plans to marry Meta. Both of them give him their blessing. Mike comes back from camp and isn’t happy that Meta is marrying Mark because he doesn’t like Mark. Elsie comes to Los Angeles with her new fiance, Albert Franklin. Mark has decided he doesn’t like Kathy even before he’s met her. Mark and Meta set a wedding date for Christmastime. 

-9/3/56 thru 9/28/56. Albert assures the Bauers that he’s not after Elsie’s money. Papa thinks Mark is selfish and worries that Mark doesn’t love Meta the way she loves him. This causes Meta to have doubts about her future with Mark. Kathy comes back home and meets Mark. Kathy learns that Mark and Meta are engaged but thinks they are all wrong for each other. Mark and Meta start getting edgy with each other and they feel a rift between them. Meta debates whether to invite Clyde and Trudy to her wedding. She doesn’t think Trudy wants anything to do with the Bauers and that Clyde is encouraging the separation. Meta is missing Joe. Mark and Meta’s plans to take Kathy out to dinner are disrupted by Meta catching a cold. Meta suggests they go on without her but is secretly disappointed when Mark doesn’t protest the idea. Mark and Kathy get to know each other better at dinner. In a sign of how things have changed over the years, Bert warns Meta about Kathy. Dan Clark heads to California to pursue Kathy, despite his mother’s warnings that he’s wasting his time. 

-10/1/56 thru 10/31/56. Lila is elated that she’s about to be released from the hospital after six months of quarantine. Albert and Elsie are married. Dan picks up on Kathy’s feelings for Mark and urges her to go back to New York with him. Mark doesn't think Kathy should marry Dan and wants to talk to her about it. Papa and Meta wonder why he cares so much about the subject. Lila comes home. Kathy tries to justify her feelings for Mark to Dan. Jim wants to move back to Chicago to take over his father’s practice since he’s had a stroke and he wants Lila to go back with him as his wife. Dick and Kathy have dinner where he tells her he’s figured out she’s in love with Mark. Dick is in a car accident and hurt his right arm. Jim fears Dick’s right hand is permanently damaged. Kathy gets histrionic, worrying and feeling guilty about Dick and rushes to the hospital to see him. Dan suggests she’s overreacting to try and repress her feelings for Mark.

-11/1/56 thru 11/30/56. Mark and Kathy have a harder time fighting their feelings for each other. Dan cryptically tells Meta that he’s sorry Kathy ever came back to California and tells Meta to open her eyes, leaving Meta confused about the meaning. Mark says he can’t go through with marrying Meta since he loves Kathy. He wants to tell Meta about Kathy but Kathy doesn’t want the whole truth to come out now. Lila is still reluctant to marry but Jim patiently says he’ll wait for her. Everybody is keeping the news that he won’t be able to be a surgeon anymore from Dick. Before he leaves California, Dan tells Meta that Kathy is in love with Mark. Meta is in denial at first but then remembers all the clues she ignored. Mark comes over to tell the truth to Meta  but Meta says she already knows and had known, subconsciously, for some time. Bill and Bert learn the truth from Kathy and are outraged. Bill and Papa try to comfort a despondent Meta. Bill and Bert break the news about Meta and Mark to Albert and Elsie on Thanksgiving. Bill is worried and sad for Meta, who had cancelled Thanksgiving over at her place. Jim leaves Los Angeles to move to Chicago but not before stopping by to give some encouragement to Dick, who is facing the reality that he won’t be able to perform surgery again. Bert tells Kathy that Bill hates Mark now. Kathy implores Bert to not judge Mark and reminds Bert of Bill’s affair with Gloria. Meta laments to Dick that she’s lost so much. Dick says that she’s lost Chuckie and Joe but she hasn’t lost Mark because she never really had him. 

-12/3/56 thru 12/31/56. Kathy thinks Robin doesn’t like her and Helen thinks Kathy has spoiled Robin. Helen is hurt when she tells her that Mark is going to adopt Robin and give her the name Holden instead of Lang. Lila stops by the hospital to say goodbye to Dick as she moves back home to make amends with her family. She assures Dick that if and when she sorts out her past, she will be ready to go to Jim and marry him. Dick meets Dr. Paul Fletcher, a young doctor from Chicago who is finishing up his residency at Cedars and is planning on staying and taking over Jim’s old office. The two will be rooming together as they are now both interns, Dick having to go into internal medicine now that his surgery career is over. Dick is not looking forward to it since he doesn’t like Paul but Paul is hoping Dick will teach him about bedside manner, something Dick has and Paul lacks. Kathy thinks Robin’s illness is psychosomatic because Robin doesn’t want to meet Mark. She fears she built up Bob too much in Robin’s mind. Jim calls Dick with the news that he and Lila got married while she was visiting him in Chicago over Christmas. Dick and Paul see in the year 1957 while on duty at the hospital. 

-12/25/56. Papa, Meta, Bill, Bert, Mike, Albert and Elsie gather at Meta’s house to celebrate Christmas. Everyone is worried about Meta being depressed.