Teenager Kathy Roberts was introduced to the Bauer family in 1950 when her father, reporter Joe Roberts, starting seeing the infamous, Meta Bauer. Meta had been in the news for murdering her former husband, Ted White. Convinced that Meta was innocent, Joe went on a crusade to help prove her innocence. During the course of the trial, it became apparent, even to Kathy, that Joe was falling in love with the woman. A precocious and manipulative teenager, Kathy intercepted and hid a letter that Meta had sent to Joe. When Kathy's brother, Joey, cornered her into admitting what she'd done, Joe came down hard on his daughter and although Joe tried to ease Kathy's fears about Meta, she remained unconvinced. Unhappy in her home situation, Kathy wanted nothing more to get out of the house by getting married. Although she hoped to marry her boyfriend, Dr. Richard "Dick" Grant, Jr., Dick had no intentions of ruining his career before it even started by getting married. Chagrined, Kathy soon fell prey to the attention of Bob Lang, whose intentions were less than honorable. Despite some interference from Meta's sister-in-law, Bert Bauer, Kathy got Bob to marry her. When Meta's trial was over, with her being acquitted, Joe learned what Kathy had done. Furious, he forced an annulment, on the grounds that Kathy was underage. Meanwhile, knowing how much Kathy hated Meta, Joe and Meta eloped to Malibu but kept the marriage a secret in hopes that Kathy would eventually accept Meta. The couple split their time between Los Angeles and a rented Malibu beach cottage, using the cover story that Joe was frequently "on assignment."

In 1951, when Joey came down with rheumatic fever, Joe rushed to the bedside of his son and hired a friendly and dedicated young nurse from Cedars Hospital named Peggy Regan. Peggy was an immediate hit with the Roberts children, who hoped that Joe would marry Peggy instead of Meta, Peggy was, indeed, developing a crush on Joe, but she knew she had no future with the older reporter and for a time, left Cedars. By 1952, Kathy was amazed to discover that Peggy was Dick Grant's cousin. Peggy's mother, Margaret, had long lamented the fact that her sister, Laura, wanted little to do with her after marrying a wealthy civil engineer named Richard Grant. While Richard Sr. was a warm, supportive father with a solid sense of values, Laura was a shallow, mean-spirited woman who tried to impose her nouveau riche affections on her children, Karen and Richard Jr., known respectively as Bunny and Dick. Laura was not at all happy to see Dick become interested in Kathy, whose stepmother, Meta, was notorious for having killed Ted White. Back in Los Angeles, Kathy's euphoria proved short-lived when Meta and Joe finally revealed that they were married. Joey was at least civil to Meta, but Kathy was nasty, belligerent and rebellious toward her father and stepmother. Kathy feared that if Meta killed once, she could kill again. Joe sternly warned Kathy to shape up. Meta however, feared she would never fit into Joe's family, and they eventually separated. Meta again went to New York to visit Trudy and Clyde and began seeing Bruce Banning. When Bruce proposed, Meta (at Trudy's urging) realized she belonged to Joe and returned home. To Joe's delight, Joey embraced Meta wholeheartedly as his new mother, but Kathy refused to budge.

Trying to escape her troublesome family situation, Kathy kept writing to Dick, pleading with him to get married. However, Dick was about to start his medical internship and had no plans for marriage. When one of Kathy's letters to Dick went unanswered, she decided to forget about him and move on with her life. Kathy graduated from high school, and much to her father's dismay, instead of going to Standford as planned, she took a job in a store and began sharing an apartment with a golddigging, would-be starlet named Alice Graham. She also continued seeing Bob Lang, a sensitive young man who had been orphaned as a child. Bob was so desperate for a stable home life that he began pressuring Kathy to marry him again. Alone and confused, Kathy finally said yes, and they were married by a justice of the peace. The newlyweds told no one of their union, partly because Kathy soon realized she had made a mistake. Within days of the ceremony, Kathy and Bob were talking in the car when Kathy admitted to Bob that she didn't want to stay married to him. Bob became angry and began driving wildly. The car crashed, Bob was killed instantly and a bewildered Kathy fled the scene. Afterward, she unwisely confided everything about the tragedy to Alice and swore her roommate to secrecy.

About this time, Dick decided to intern at Cedars to be near Kathy, which didn't please Laura. Fortunately for Dick, Bunny discovered that Laura had filched that letter to Dick from Kathy, and was quick to tell her brother. Bunny was bitter toward Laura for having broken up her recent romance and was drinking heavily because she was now married to a boring man of whom Laura, of course approved. Determined to keep her brother from following the same path, Bunny urged Dick to stand up to Laura, and to the relief of both Bunny and Richard, he did. Dick lit into his mother for her machinations and told her that he intended to marry Kathy.

Meanwhile, when Alice became began filming commercials in violation of her exclusive contract, Bill Bauer, Meta's brother, threatened to fire her. At that moment, Alice, she coolly told him everything about Kathy and Bob's accident and threatened to reveal it to the world if Bill axed her. Cornered, Bill kept Alice on but told Bert and Papa Bauer that Alice had blackmailed him. The Bauers' hearts ached for Kathy, and they decided to keep her secret. Meanwhile, Kathy finally realized that Meta was trying hard to be her friend and confided in Meta about the details surrounding Bob's death. Meta was touched that Kathy had entrusted her with this painful secret but was disappointed when Kathy married Dick without telling him of her previous marriage to Bob, to nobody's surprise Laura sat out the wedding.

As Kathy's luck would have it, the events she had set into motion began to close in on her. Don Crane, Joe's muckracking colleague at the City Times found a woman's cigarette lighter in Bob's car and suspected he wasn't alone during his fatal accident. Crane traced the lighter to Sid, who had given it to Alice, who in turn had loaned it to Kathy. Investigating the matter further, Crane discovered that Kathy and Bob had secretly married! Crane related this to his and Joe's boss, John (Mac) McIntyre. But when Mac refused to run the story out of loyalty to Joe, Crane angrily defected to a rival tabloid. Mac told Joe, and Joe heard the remainder of the story from Meta. To further complicate matters, Kathy found herself pregnant with Bob's child and led everyone to believe it was Dick's!

Meanwhile, Kathy was arraigned and the police began hammering her with questions about the crash that killed Bob. Meta knew her family could no longer live in denial and she finally convinced Kathy to tell Dick the truth about Bob. Kathy left the door open for Dick to divorce her, but Dick loved her enough to stand by her. At this point, everyone except Dick and his parents knew that Kathy's unborn child was Bob's, but Laura suspected the truth and despised Kathy for having dragged the precious Grant name through the mud. When Kathy's bail was set at $25,000, Laura adamantly refused Dick's plea to put up the money. It was Meta who paid the bail, using money she had received after Ted White's death. Kathy's chances for acquittal looked dim at first, as District Attorney Richard Hanley hinged his case on the possibility that she had tampered with Bob's car. However, Joe located a mechanic who admitted he might have left a nut loose when he worked on Bob's brakes earlier. Kathy was cleared of the charges and gave birth to a girl, Robin. She chose that name because the baby was born in the spring, the season of new beginnings.

Also giving birth to Robin, Kathy came down with viral pneumonia and began to experience hallucinations. To help his wife, Dick called in his cousin, Nurse Peggy Regan, who had returned to Cedars. Laura previously had no use for her middle-class side of the family, but she was now getting chummy with her niece in hopes of learning the identity of Robin's real biological father. One who shared Laura's suspicions was Janet Johnson, a voluptuous nurse who was attracted to Dick's boyish innocence -- and to his money. When Kathy recovered from her pneumonia, she began to pull away from Dick out of guilt for deceiving him, causing Dick to fall prey to Janet's predatory charms. Before long they were having an affair. Tired of her sham of a marriage, Kathy finally told Dick the truth about Robin. Dick tersely replied that he didn't care; he was in love with Janet, and he wanted their marriage annulled.

Her marriage over, Kathy tried to get on with her life by dating again--often leaving Robin in Meta's care. Soon, Kathy was spending a lot of time in New York and dating a man named Dan Clark. Dan proposed, but Kathy was still uncertain about her feelings for Dick, so she returned to Los Angeles, where Meta introduced her to Mark Holden. Not only did Mark and Kathy get along, but they were instantly attracted to one another! Fate kept throwing them together at every turn, and Meta never suspected that her fiancé and stepdaughter were harboring intense mutual feelings. Finally, Mark and Kathy had to face the fact that they were both considering marriage to people they didn't love. Kathy also figured out, at long last, where and how Dick fit into her life. They would always be dear friends, having shared a long and rich history in the face of countless problems. Kathy admitted to Dick that she was in love with Mark and that she hated Meta for wanting to marry so soon after Joe's death. To Kathy's great relief, Dick told her to follow her heart and be happy. Dan, who had come out from New York to be with Kathy, realized that Kathy and Mark were in love and bitterly told this to Meta before he left Los Angeles. Soon, Kathy and Mark became engaged, but Mark realized that he'd stepped into a sticky situation when Robin returned from school in Switzerland. A spoiled, belligerent preteen, Robin immediately locked horns with Mark. The lives of Meta, Kathy, Mark, Robin and Paul were about to take some fascinating and unexpected turns.

As the Bauers watched Kathy's daughter Robin, grow up, it was evident that the apple had not fallen far from the tree. Robin manipulated Kathy insufferably with guilt and threats to run away, all in the interest of keeping Mark and Kathy apart. In truth, Kathy wanted to spare Robin the pain she had known as a teenager when her father married Meta without her approval. Mark was not one to be pushed around, however, and he saw Robin for the precocious and manipulative child she was. Mark convinced Kathy to marry him, but the new Holden household was a battleground from day one. Robin continued to dictate to Kathy, while Meta constantly coddled Robin and undermined Mark's authority. Mark's teenage sister, Alice, came to stay with the Holdens, and Robin took an instant dislike to her despite Alice's efforts to be friendly. When young Mike Bauer (Bill and Bert's son) became interested in Alice, Robin started flirting with him just out of spite. Meanwhile, Kathy learned she was pregnant but held off telling Mark and Robin for fear of escalating the conflict between them. Unfortunately, one day, a somewhat vindictive Alice didn't hang up one of the phones in the house to try to get Robin in trouble. Robin picked up the receiver only to eavesdrop on a phone conversation between Kathy and her obstetrician. Robin blurted the news to Mark, who was furious with Kathy for keeping it from him!

By the end of 1957, Alice attempted to fix a chair in the Holden kitchen to hurt Robin. Unfortunately, while putting up shelves in her kitchen, Kathy got on the chair and then fell. Sadly, Kathy lost her baby and became paralyzed. To complicate matters, Kathy's nurse was her old nemesis, Janet Johnson, back in town after a bitter divorce. Dick recommended that Kathy undergo surgery on her legs, but Dr. Paul Fletcher knew that Kathy had only one chance in a thousand of walking again and accused Dick of offering her false hope. Kathy and Robin were more comfortable with Paul's direct approach than Mark was. (Mark was also very flabbergasted when he found out about Alice's involvement in Kathy's accident and threw her out of his house and sent her back to their parents.. Fortunately, Kathy's paralysis jolted Robin into accepting Mark as her father, and he happily adopted her. In addition, Meta's brother, Bill, finally began to put aside his resentment of Kathy. By this time, it was 1958 and soon tragedy struck. While Kathy was outside in her wheelchair, two children on bicycles accidentally knocked her off the sidewalk into heavy traffic. She was killed instantly, leaving Robin to be cared for by Mark and Meta.