Some angels come with golden hair, soft voices and messages of hope and love.

Other angels have the golden hair, soft voice, and inspired message, but they also come equipped with Harvard business degrees, steel-trap minds, and solid grounding in strategic planning and finance.

One of these latter types is Mary Cunningham Agee, former Fortune 500 Wunderkind, author, dedicated public servant, devout Catholic, and founder and CEO of the Nurturing Network. Mrs. Agee is also the wife of Bill Agee, CEO of the Morrison Knudsen Corp., and perhaps most importantly, the mother of seven year old Mary Alana and five-year old William.

The family, relatively new in the community, is now settled in a lovely restored home in Pebble Beach of which Mrs. Agee was the chief design and reconstruction supervisor. The first distinguishing feature of the home the visitor sees is the white gate which depicts three angels, two earth-bound and one aloft. They symbolize the Agee's three children - one of whom has gone to heaven.

But the gate symbolizes more that the lost child. In many ways, it also symbolizes Mrs. Agee herself-up front spirituality committed, but down-to-earth practical as well. The gate also pictures the motivating force behind the Nurturing Network-the organization that is probably Mrs. Agee’s fourth most important creation.

The story of the Nurturing Network starts with personal tragedy, one which occurred just after Christmas 1983 in Osterville, Massachusetts. Married only one year, Mr. and Mrs. Agee were eagerly awaiting the birth of their first child in April when one of those life altering disaster struck: and entirely unexpected second trimester miscarriage. Mrs. Agee was emotionally devastated, she says, and felt herself surrendering to an intense loneliness for this child they had wanted so much. Sitting in their darkened living room with her husband after her return from the hospital, her mind focused on words she remembered from Bishop Fulton Sheen: "Unless there is a Good Friday there will never be an Easter Sunday."

From the depths of her own suffering, Mrs. Agee began to think of other women who had suffered a similar loss-the death of a child, when the death was caused by an abortion. If losing her own child was so devastating, she reasoned, how about all those other women who, faced with an unwanted pregnancy, felt forced into an abortion? Forced, because no realistic alternative existed.

Mrs. Agee did some basic research: Every year about 1/6 million women have abortions. Contrary to public perception, most of the mothers to be are not confused teenagers, runaways from disadvantaged homes, and the like. In fact, 70 percent of abortions on 1,120,000 women a year are performed for women between 20-26 years old who have at least a high school education.

These are the women who have abortions, she found, because they are the ones with the most to lose. These women might have families who would be embarrassed by an out-of-wedlock child, or are in the middle of a college education, or climbing the corporate ladder. For some unmarried women, if a baby appeared on the scene, they would lose their job. These women, it seemed to Mrs. Agee, were the most vulnerable and most in need of an alternative to abortion.

Real research began. Taking a traditional business approach, Mrs. Agee started with an informal marketing survey: she asked 10 abortion clinics for the first names and telephone numbers of 10 women who had abortions. Contacting these women, Mrs. Agee asked, "If a real choice had bee available, if you could have continued your education, kept your job, been assured of support-both monetary and emotional-and had access to whatever help you needed, would you have preferred to have given birth to your baby?

"Not surprisingly, perhaps, 91 out of 100 women contacted said that under those circumstances, they would have chosen to have the baby. Most expressed regret at having the abortion, but said "I had no choice."

Hearing women say, "I had no choice" in this supposedly "pro-choice" world was the call to action for Mrs. Agee, and the Nurturing Network was born. Starting with her Christmas card list, she began to form and organization that could offer choice for women with unexpected pregnancies. From among her friends, business associates, and every "old girl" and "old boy" network she could access the Network began to form ties and bonds of communication and caring across the country.

A more formal marketing study was done, a strategic plan was drawn up, a financial analysis completed, and a budget finalized. "You can’t run this on just love and prayers," she says. "You have to bay the bills too."

What has emerged, eight years later, is a nationwide charitable organization of some 13,000 members, dedicated to offering any woman who is considering abortion a choice-a real choice. While far from running on "only" love and prayers, the Network is surely run "with" lover and prayers. What the Network offers to those archetypal "women in trouble" is essentially a safe haven, a place to live, a job, a transfer to a school or college during the pregnancy so no time will be lost, counseling, and perhaps most notably, unconditional love. "For most of our clients," Mrs. Agee says, "This is the very first time anyone has ever loved them without conditions. When in doubt, our basic questions, "What would Jesus do?"

What Jesus would surely do is to offer help, not platitudes. Would the woman in school, just a few credits from graduation, and giving birth to a baby, spell d-r-o-p-o-u-t? Then, as in the case of "Avlina," who was only nine units short of a doctorate in bio-chemistry when she found herself pregnant, the Network will activate a "cluster community" in a distant city, and will provide a loving home, access to medical and hospital care, any and all counseling needed, and, oh yes, a quick transfer to another college (a part of the "cluster") so graduation will be on time.

Perhaps the woman is like "Mia," who had just graduated from college she learned she was pregnant. Mia initially went to an abortion clinic, but panicked while filling out the forms. She decided to give birth tot he baby no matter what the difficulty. Although neither Mia or her boyfriend were ready for marriage, the Network was ready for Mia. A job was found for her with a supportive boss, and she was loved and supported during her pregnancy. Her baby boy brought incalculable joy to a grateful adoptive family and Mia’s career was unharmed.

"Carolyn" was a bit different. At 33, she had been abandoned by the father of her baby, and shortly thereafter became homeless. Although she was a nurse, she was unemployed and had a problem with alcohol. The Network found Carolyn a nurturing home, prenatal care, clinical counseling, and as soon as she was able, a job. After her baby was born, and after several months of steady employment, she moved into her own apartment and has remained alcohol-free. "I knew I could come back from my crisis," she wrote to the Network, "But it depended on help from someone who believed in me."

Carolyn, Mia, Alvina-plus Shannon, Ann, and nearly 4,000 other young women-have now been helped by the Nurturing Network, the organization born out of the painful loss of just one child. Her fondest wish, Mrs. Agee says, is to be put out of business-by a society that no longer stigmatizes pregnant women and in which everyone cares enough about each other that the Network’s resources are no longer needed.

That will be a while incoming, it appears. For now, the hardest part of managing the Network is hearing from those for whom the help is too late. Mrs. Agee tells of a telephone call from a sobbing woman who was speaking from a pay phone Laundromat. The lady had just found, for the first time, one of the Network’s pastel pink and lavender brochures, telling about the Network, the help that is available, and giving a phone number to call. "I had a abortion yesterday," the woman cried. "I had no idea you even existed. If only I had known."

"Those are the works that echo in my mind late at night-the woman who say " I found the Network too late," Mrs. Agee says. "They make me wonder what else I could have done."

For those who wonder what they could do, the telephone number for The Nurturing Network is 1-800-TNN-4MOM. Keep it handy. More information is gladly provided, the interest is always deeply appreciated.