Lydia Van Hale was a Manticoran citizen and a member of the Sphinx Forestry Service. After her uncle, a captain in the Royal Manticoran Navy, rescued a group of Mesan genetic slaves, he introduced her to one of them, Patrick Van Hale, who also started working for the SFS. The two young people got married eventually, and had at least six children, the oldest of which was Judson Van Hale. Her husband suffered greatly from the trauma of the Mesan sex training he had received from an early age, and it took Lydia a long time to help him recover from it. (CS2)