 Her father, Edward Zimmermann (1879–1977), was an accountant with James H. Dunham & Company, a Manhattan wholesale dry-goods company, and her mother, Agnes (Gardner) Zimmermann (1883–1974), was a teacher.Edward Zimmermann had been raised in the Dutch Reformed Church and his wife was Presbyterian.Shortly after they married, they joined the Episcopal congregation at Church of the Redeemer, where their daughter was baptized.