Barney, the financial mainstay of the family, was the first born and in young adulthood would come to work for the Western Cold Storage Company, earning $25 a week.

For years, snacks along with nutritionally questionable foods like French fries and high-fat breakfast sandwiches have been the financial mainstay of school lunchrooms nationwide.

The growth outlook for the company's financial mainstay - productivity programs like word processing, spreadsheet and data base software - must inevitably slow.

Salmon and steelhead fishing on the Situk are Yakutat's financial mainstay.

Soon Insull, the financial mainstay, lost control of his utilities and transportation companies and became unable to under-write Civic Opera.

His companion, Sherry Hall, a public-school teacher, is the financial mainstay, supporting the family in an apartment in Inwood, in upper Manhattan.

Today, the scratch-off lottery ticket business is the company's financial mainstay.

Membership in Medicare H.M.O.'s nationwide has grown to five million, narrowing the market for the supplemental insurance that has been the association's financial mainstay.

In the weeks leading up to the protests, physicians were advised that wavering colleagues should be threatened with a loss of referrals, the financial mainstay of many private practices.

Growth in the Office line is vital for Microsoft because it is the company's financial mainstay, generating an estimated $4.4 billion in sales last year.