Looking every bit the professional, Gloria Farber told Ronnie Eldridge, a New York City Council member and City University of New York talk show host, that language and praise were two of the most important gifts parents can give their children.

“Praise is so important,” Farber said during a 2007 televised interview with Eldridge. “It makes a tremendous difference to praise a child.”

As a lifelong educator who received her doctorate of education from Columbia Teachers College, Farber seems uniquely suited for the role she embraced four months ago when her 50-year-old daughter, Jennifer Farber Dulos, disappeared on May 24 as she was embroiled in a bitter two-year divorce with her husband, Fotis Dulos.

The 84-year-old Farber, a Manhattan resident, has since cared for the couple’s five children, ages 8 to 13, as investigators have scoured properties owned by Fotis Dulos, bodies of water and even tons of trash looking for clues as to what happened to her daughter.

“Gloria Farber is the strongest person I know,” said family friend Carrie Luft, who has responded to media inquiries about the family and the investigation. “Every day she summons courage, dignity and grace while living through this devastating situation. Her mission is to care and provide for her grandchildren, which she does with love and understanding and a vibrancy of spirit that people half her age would envy.”

The disappearance has thrust the family into the national and international spotlight with daily coverage of the investigation and the custody battle for the children who are now making a life in New York City with their grandmother.

Television cameras and reporters chased Fotis Dulos and his attorney William Murray from a Hartford courthouse this month after proceedings in the $2.5 million lawsuit Farber filed in 2018, claiming her son-in-law never repaid loans made by the family to his real estate business, Fore Group.

Every motion filed in the Dulos divorce, including Farber’s successful bid to intervene so she can seek permanent custody of the children, has made headlines. As news spread this month that Fotis Dulos was arrested on a new tampering with evidence charge, he and his controversial defense attorney, Norm Pattis, were met with throngs of reporters and TV cameras after posting bond.

The charge is related to Fotis Dulos and Michelle Troconis cleaning up a pickup truck — owned by a former Fore Group employee — that police say was involved in the disappearance and contained Jennifer Dulos’ blood on one of the seats, according to arrest warrants.

Fotis Dulos, 52, and Troconis, 44, previously pleaded not guilty to the original tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution charges.

Police said those charges are related to video surveillance in Hartford that showed two people resembling Fotis Dulos and Troconis the night of the disappearance. According to arrest warrants, Fotis Dulos was seen dumping garbage bags that were later determined to contain his wife’s blood and clothing.

Farber’s roots

Despite the media firestorm, Farber has remained resolute in her request for privacy to shelter the children from the criminal investigation and court proceedings.

“She’s the most incredible 84-year-old,” said attorney Richard Weinstein, who is representing her in the civil lawsuits. “She’s a wonderful woman, an intelligent person. We should all be like that at 84. The only thing on her mind right now is the welfare of those kids.”

Friends describe Farber as an avid theatergoer, a constant reader, a woman of humor and longtime tennis fan.

As the director of education for Columbia University’s Head Start Program, Farber spearheaded the drive to make sure the children of West Harlem and Washington Heights started school on a level playing field with their middle- and upper-income peers.

She spoke enthusiastically of the program during an interview with Eldridge in 2007.

“The most important thing is language development for later learning,” Farber said.

The children and families who benefited from Columbia’s Head Start and Early Head Start programs were receiving life skills that would allow them to succeed even as they lived in low-income neighborhoods in New York City, she said.

She also was an adjunct professor of education at Columbia University’s Teacher’s College and a founding member of CARING, Children At Risk: Intervention for the Next Generation, a psycho-education and arts program that helps teens and families identify their strengths and express their emotions in positive ways.

She continues to be actively involved in the program, friends said.

Farber was born to first-generation immigrants in Newark, N.J. Her mother was a seamstress from Poland, her father an upholsterer from Russia. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor’s degree in English from Douglass College in Brunswick, N.J., after attending high school in Newark.

She received her master’s of education and a master’s of science from Bank Street College of Education in New York City. In 1958, she married Hilliard Farber, who became the youngest senior vice president, heading the bond trading desk, for Chase Manhattan Bank. He founded the Hilliard Farber Company, an inter-dealer brokerage firm in 1975, serving as chairman and chief executive officer until retiring in 2008.

The couple had two daughters, Jennifer and Melissa. The Farbers were known as philanthropists, starting the Gloria and Hilliard Farber Foundation, which supported educational institutions and aided individuals in pursuing their educational goals. They also were benefactors of St. Ann’s School in Brooklyn Heights, where “Hill” as he was affectionately called, served on the board for decades.

The Farbers were married for 58 “joyous” years, friends said, until Hilliard died in January 2017 following a long illness.

‘I believe she’s not alive’

Six months later, Jennifer Dulos filed for divorce and took her five children to New Canaan, where she rented a home on Welles Lane. Fotis Dulos remained at their Farmington estate, which he built and the Farbers helped secure the mortgage for by putting down $2.3 million in cash collateral in 2012, court documents state.

Weinstein said Fotis Dulos stopped paying the mortgage last November and has not paid “a dime” in child support or alimony since his wife filed for divorce. Weinstein said Farber has been supporting the children and was making mortgage payments on the home until July. She recently bought the mortgage from a New York financial entity and is seeking to foreclose on the property.

A new search commenced last week for Jennifer Dulos at a reservoir less than a mile from the former family home in Farmington.

Jennifer Dulos was last seen on a neighbor’s security camera returning home around 8:05 a.m. May 24 after dropping off her five children at a nearby school.

Police believe Fotis Dulos was “lying in wait” when she arrived at her Welles Lane home, where they found evidence that she was the victim of a “serious physical assault” based on blood stains and spatter in the garage, according to arrest warrants.

Family and friends have declined to say whether they believe she is still alive, but her mother’s attorney was the first one to publicly speak about it last week.

“If you want my opinion, I believe she’s not alive,” Weinstein said Thursday. “This is a devastating situation for the family.”