Dr. Dorian Cramer arrives in Llanview on April 30, 1973 with unstable younger sister Melinda Cramer. Both of their parents are assumed to have died in a plane crash en route to visit an injured Melinda, whose promising career as a pianist was ended by a fall that had paralyzed her arm (it is later revealed their mother survived). Having apparently lost a third sister to pneumonia, Dorian and Melinda are each other's only family.