It was an icy day in March, 1958 when Ethel Haase met Ann Landers.

In fact, it was the ice that nearly kept Haase, a reporter with the Austin Daily Herald at the time, from lunching with the famed advice columnist.

"Naturally, I wanted to give the interview my very best shot … this was Ann Landers, consultant to the millions. Big stuff!" Haase recounts.

Wanting to make a good impression, Haase recalls she "wore a black silk shantung combination with a fitted jacket … black hose, of course, spike black patent pumps. My black shantung pill box hat held three large, white organza roses with quivering petals. White gloves and a patent leather envelope purse really made me feel up to my assignment."

Feeling especially professional, she stepped out of her house onto a piece of ice and crashed flat on her back. "The quivering roses went one way, the purse slid another -- I was just flat out. And furious. My husband, waiting in the car, was witness (and) I could see him chuckling," she remembers with an amused and exasperated smile. "I resolved to just lay there. No way was I going to struggle up. Maybe I was not mortally wounded, but my pride and career visions were down the tube."

With the help of her husband, she resumed an upright position, and by the time she met Landers at the Kings Wood Hotel in Austin for lunch, Haase's wrists were so swollen she could barely write and her left cheek was "scraped suspiciously."

Haase says Landers did give her a funny look every now and then but "she didn't ask how I had happened to get beat up. She didn't offer advice, but probably thought I needed it!"

She can't remember why Landers was in Austin, but Haase only met her for an interview over lunch. "She was not at all absorbed with herself … she wasn't at all pretentious. We didn't talk about her personal life. She did assure me there were no problems between her and her sister (advice columnist Abigail Van Buren) and said that it was just used to promote newspaper readership. I didn't ask if she had any particular hobbies because it was apparent she didn't have time for anything else than her work," Haase says. "We talked about how she came to start the column, how absorbed in her work she was, the amount of mail she had. She said she just felt she was doing everyone a service, like she was making a real contribution to their lives."

Haase also remembers Landers asked a few questions about Haase and "I thought that was very kind of her to ask about me. After all, who was I? It showed what kind of person she was."

Though the two never spoke again, Haase continued to read Landers' column and says "it's a wonderful, wonderful legacy she has left behind … in a way, she won't ever be gone. Years from now, people will be taking out her clippings to show them to their children, their husbands and their wives."

Amanda L. Rohde can be reached at 434-2214 or by e-mail at :mailto:amanda.rohde@austindailyherald.com