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At this time, Gladys and Grace were living in a very small apartment in Hollywood. Norma Jeane had
been there before. Occasionally, Gladys would pick her up at the Bolenders’ and bring her to her home
for an awkward visit or sleepover. Marilyn would later say that she spent most of this time with her
mother “in the closet of her bedroom hiding among her clothes. She seldom spoke to me except to say,
‘Don’t make so much noise, Norma.’ She would say this even when I was lying in bed at night and
turning the pages of a book. Even the sound of a page turning made her nervous.”
Now, suddenly, mother and daughter were expected to forge a happy relationship. It wouldn’t be easy.
After all, they didn’t even really know each other. Once Norma Jeane began living with her, Gladys
became convinced that the girl was unhappy. “She spent seven years living on a spacious farm, and
now this?” she asked Grace. “I’m sure she’s miserable here.” In fact, Gladys was not wrong. Norma
Jeane missed her Aunt Ida terribly, as well as her foster siblings. She was just a little girl who had been
uprooted from the only life she’d known, the only people she’d ever loved. It must have seemed so
unfair. She certainly couldn’t hide her emotions about it, even if they did upset her mother. “Are we
going to visit Aunt Ida soon?” she kept asking. However, Gladys and Grace had made the decision that
it would be best if they not allow Norma Jeane to spend any more time at the Bolenders’. They felt it
would just make her adjustment to her new life all the more difficult.
“Meanwhile, Gladys’s depression was deepening during this time and she seemed more confused than
ever,” said Esther Thompson, whose mother, Ruth, worked with Grace at Consolidated. The two were
very close friends. “She said she needed more time to make some changes. She wanted to be more
settled and possibly even be living in a house when she finally had her daughter in her care. Then
Grace, who believed that anything was possible, encouraged her that such a thing could happen if they
just put their heads together.”
It’s interesting that Grace McKee felt so certain she and Gladys would be able to buy a home, given
that the economy in America was in such desperate shape in 1933. Almost fifteen million Americans
were unemployed. Of these, about two million were wandering aimlessly about the country in search of
work. Hundreds of thousands of people were homeless, living in tents or abandoned ramshackle
dwellings. Banks in thirty-eight states were forced to close as anxious investors began withdrawing all
of their deposits. It’s almost impossible to imagine the country in such turmoil, but indeed the Great
Depression was a devastating time in our history. From the beginning, America’s new president, fiftyone-
year-old Franklin Delano Roosevelt, tried to restore popular confidence. “The only thing we have
to fear,” he said in his inaugural address in March 1933, “is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning,
unjustified terror.” One thing was certain about Grace McKee, and that was that she was fearless. Her
confidence that she would find a way inspired Gladys to believe that maybe their future would be a
bright one, despite what was going on all around them.
Therefore, it was the two women’s decision to give Norma Jeane to yet another foster family—the
Atkinsons—but just temporarily. George and Maud Atkinson, both English, were in the periphery of
show business as bit players in films. George had also worked as a stand-in for George Arliss, the
distinguished British actor and the first Brit to win an Academy Award as Best Actor. He and Maud had
a young daughter named Nellie who was around Norma’s age. It was decided that Norma Jeane could
be happy with them while Gladys and Grace strategized their next move.

Born Clara Grace Atchinson in Montana, she was thirty-seven in 1933. Grace—a two-time divorcee by
then—was a petite woman like Gladys, barely five feet tall. * In fact, they were able to wear the same
clothes, and they often did. She was known for her personal magnetism. When Grace was in a room, it
was difficult not to focus on her, so powerful was her presence. Although not beautiful in the accepted
sense of the word, she was so vital and charismatic she gave the impression of beauty. Her wavy hair
was usually dyed a peroxide blonde but sometimes left to its original brown color. She also had deepset
brown eyes and a thin mouth usually curled into a smile. Grace aspired to become an actress, but
though she had plenty of ambition and maybe even some talent, she would never apply herself to that
goal. She once wrote to a cousin, “If I could only have Jean Harlow’s life, what a good time I would
have. To be an actress is my dream, I guess. I don’t know that it could happen. But, still, I can dream,
can’t I?”
Grace and Gladys got along famously, even though they obviously did have their problems from time
to time. It’s a testament to Grace’s loyalty to Gladys that they were able to get past that troubling
stabbing incident, shortly after Norma Jeane was born. Both were good-time gals in the Roaring
Twenties and as such had no problem finding bootleg liquor and men. To say that they merely enjoyed
their flapper-girl lifestyles would be to understate their fun times. “We have FUN,” Grace wrote to her
cousin, making sure to capitalize each letter in the word.
Moreover, Gladys began to depend on Grace for direction and advice in almost all areas of her life.
With Della gone, she needed someone to lean on, and for now that would be Grace. They started acting
as a team, making joint decisions about their lives. Grace was smart and self-sufficient, and she always
felt she knew the solution to every problem—not just her own, but everyone else’s as well. She felt
compelled to give people advice, even those who didn’t ask for it. It was one of the reasons her
marriages had not worked out. For instance, she’d often start a conversation with the statement, “You
know what your problem is?” Then she would proceed to explain the “problem” whether a solution was
asked for or not. Gladys, who never had a guiding maternal influence, gravitated to Grace and
appreciated that her best friend cared enough about her to offer advice.
“In many ways, Grace lived her life through others,” Bea Thomas, who knew Grace, observed in 1976.
“Some felt she wasn’t particularly attractive and that she tried to do for others what she couldn’t do for
herself in terms of beauty. She had an inner beauty, though, and you can see it from her photos.
However, she gave Gladys a complete makeover. When she told her that her brunette hair made her
look ‘mousy’ and suggested bright red as a more suitable color, Gladys promptly dyed her hair. When
she told Gladys that her clothing style was too conservative and suggested she be more provocative,
Gladys agreed. The two went shopping for new dresses and it was Grace—not Gladys—who selected
each one of them. Grace also felt that Gladys’s vocabulary should be expanded, and often corrected her
grammar when the two were with friends. Grace couldn’t have children, so she encouraged Gladys to
take more responsibility for Norma Jeane.”

This was not an easy decision for Ida. “She loved her,” said one of her relatives, “but I think she began
to feel as if she was failing where Norma Jeane was concerned. She took the child’s fragility as an
indication that she had not done what she set out to do with her, which was to make her stronger. But
Norma Jeane was strong. She was just a girl. She was very sensitive, very vulnerable… and that’s what
threw Ida off, I think.”
The next day, Norma Jeane was told that her mother was on her way and that she would be taking her
home with her. This was confusing. “But I am home,” Norma Jeane said. “Yes you are,” Ida told her,
“and you can come back anytime you want to.”
Still quietly sniffling through tearful moments for the rest of the day, the little girl kept her eyes fixed
on the street outside the front window waiting for the mysterious—and sometimes even scary—woman
who had come from time to time to visit and promise her a good life “someday.”
Silent and focused only on getting the job done in an efficient manner, Ida packed a little suitcase for
Norma Jeane, just a few things. Then she called her into the kitchen and sat her down at the table for a
talk. “I want you to know that we’ll always be here for you,” she told her, according to a later
recollection. She spoke very slowly as if to give more weight to her words. “We’ll always love you,”
she added reassuringly. “But we just think that it’s time for you to know your mother. Your real mother.
Do you understand?” As Ida spoke to Norma Jeane, all of the other foster children were grouped in the
living room, crying. The noise must have driven Ida crazy. Clearly, no one wanted to see Norma Jeane
go, even though the time had come for her departure. Ida began to rethink things. Was this really the
right decision? Perhaps she was being hasty? Should she call Gladys back and say she had changed her
mind? No. She had always been decisive and now was not the time to change.
Finally, Gladys pulled up in front of the Bolender home and tooted her vehicle’s horn. She didn’t get
out of the car.
Inside the house, Ida put Norma Jeane’s coat on her and buttoned it. Bending down to her eye level, she
put strong hands on narrow shoulders. Her eyes filled with sudden warmth as she gazed at her sad
foster child, this girl she’d known and loved since infancy. She hugged her tightly. “I’ll miss you,
Norma Jeane,” she said. Then, handing her the small suitcase, she sent her on her way.
With a very troubled look on her little face, Norma Jeane walked down the sidewalk and got into the
car with a woman she thought of as a stranger. She didn’t sit in the front seat next to her, though.
Rather, she opened a rear door and got into the back of the vehicle. Then, peering out the window as
the car drove off, she watched the only mother she’d ever known fade into the distance. Norma Jeane
Mortensen had no idea where she was going. She only hoped that wherever it was, it would be… home.
A New—and Temporary—Life
When Gladys Baker picked up her daughter from the Bolenders, she did not arrive alone. With her was
her close friend who had once babysat Norma Jeane, the woman who, as it would turn out, would
become a key figure in the young girl’s life, Grace Atchinson McKee. She was Gladys’s roommate for
some time and worked with her at Consolidated Studios, also as a splicer, or “cutter,” of film negatives.
Consolidated was a film laboratory and processing company, the leader in its industry for many
decades in Los Angeles. Finally, Gladys was making a good wage there and was able to settle into a
more stable life. It was tedious work, though. Basically, she spent six days a week reviewing endless
rolls of film negatives in order to cut the sections that had been previously marked by studio editors.
She then handed the material over to another department for the final splicing. The walls of the
building in which she worked were thick cement with not many windows. There was no air
conditioning, and at times it was absolutely stifling inside. However, it was a steady job, and that was
all that mattered. She’d also made a good friend there, Grace.

By June 1933, shortly after her seventh birthday, Norma Jeane’s life was settled—such as it was. Yes,
there were problems at the Bo-lender home, but it was all that she knew and she was fine there. She got
along with her foster siblings and also had one faithful friend who was always there for her and never
once brought her anything but joy: her pet dog, Tippy.
Sadly, however, a tragedy involving Tippy would be the catalyst to Norma Jeane’s departure from the
Bolender home. As the story goes—and it’s been told countless times over the years in different
variations—a neighbor of the Bolenders became annoyed by the dog’s constant barking. In Marilyn’s
memoir, she writes that the neighbor, finally fed up and in a moment of fury, attacked the dog with a
hoe, savagely cutting Tippy in half.
A Bolender family member explained that what really happened was that Tippy was hit by a car and
killed. Ida, having witnessed the event, didn’t want the dead animal continually run over in the street.
Therefore, using a garden hoe, she lifted the carcass and dropped it on the driveway. She wanted
nothing more to do with it, and decided that the gruesome task of disposing of the pet should wait for
Wayne’s return. However, before Wayne got home, Norma Jeane showed up after playing with some
friends down the street. Obviously, she was devastated by the sight of her best friend’s dead body,
mangled and lying in the driveway with a nearby garden tool seemingly part of the macabre scene. She
let out a shriek, burst into tears, and ran into the house. For the next few hours, it was impossible for
Ida to calm her down.
Ida, in an attempt to make the pain of the dog’s death seem more bearable to Norma Jeane, explained
that some unknown party had shot Tippy in the head and that his death was immediate. She thought
that if the girl believed that not much suffering had been involved, she would feel better. However,
Norma Jeane refused to believe Ida and had invented her own story. “Tippy was cut up with a hoe,”
Norma Jeane insisted through her tears. “The neighbors finally killed him!”
Ida tried everything she could think of to shake that scenario from Norma Jeane’s mind, even telling
her the truth at one point. It didn’t work. The girl was absolutely convinced that the neighbors had been
plotting her dog’s death for some time and had finally succeeded at it. Ida found this very disturbing—
maybe even paranoid. “Ida wondered if Norma Jeane was starting to have delusions like her mother,
Gladys,” explains a relative, “because she wouldn’t let go of this crazy idea that the neighbors had
hacked up her dog. On some level, I think Ida had always been afraid of Gladys… and now she was
wondering about her daughter. She had become very uneasy about it.”
Norma Jeane’s paroxysm lasted into the next day, with the family enjoying silence only during her
slumber. Ida had a real problem with this kind of expression of emotion. Actually, she’d recently begun
to wonder if she had even been put on this earth to raise such a sensitive child. This certainly hadn’t
been the first time Norma Jeane became upset when something in her little world went awry. Ida started
to wonder if perhaps her influence was backfiring. While her goal had always been to strengthen
Norma Jeane, maybe her firm hand and distant affection was actually having a negative effect on the
girl. Had it created a child who would spin out of control when faced with any emotional trauma?
It seems clear now that Ida was confused and felt she was at a crossroads with her foster daughter. She
had once believed she and Wayne would adopt the girl. However, Gladys had again made it clear that
this would not be the case. In fact, in recent months, Gladys had started saying that she wanted Norma
Jeane back. Stalling, Ida always had an excuse as to why the girl could not be returned—she was in
school, she had made friends, she was not feeling well. Finally, Ida decided that perhaps the time had
come. Norma Jeane was already distraught, Ida told Wayne, so why not let her traumatizing memory of
her dog’s death blend with the difficulty she would suffer during a transfer of custody? The next
afternoon, she telephoned Gladys. “I think it would be best now if you came and took Norma Jeane,”
she told her. “She’s very upset. I think she needs her mother.”

By the time Norma Jeane turned seven in June 1933, she was having a difficult time relating to other
people. She also didn’t get along with children her own age at the Washington Street School she
attended in Hawthorne. Certainly, Lester, the child who’d been adopted by the Bolenders, was an ally.
But as for everyone else, she seemed afraid to know them or didn’t want to play with them. There was
an understandably deep sadness about her. She was shy, withdrawn. However, that said, she had only
become more uncommonly pretty with the passing of the years. With her face so clear and luminous
and her blonde hair seeming somehow aglow—Ida actually washed it in lemon juice for just such an
effect, which suggests that even she was taken by the child’s beauty—little Norma Jeane really was
stunning.
In recent years, Norma Jeane had grown to think of Ida Bolender as her mother. However, Ida would
always disabuse her of that notion. Once it had been clarified that no official adoption would take
place, whenever Norma Jeane referred to Ida as her mother, she was quickly reprimanded. “I’m not
your real mother,” Ida would say very abruptly, “and I don’t want you having people believe
otherwise.” In Marilyn Monroe’s autobiography, she quotes Ida as having told her, “You’re old enough
to know better. I’m not related to you. Your mama’s coming to see you tomorrow. You can call her
mama.” The truth was the truth, as far as Ida was concerned, and she wasn’t the girl’s mother, plain and
simple. The sooner Norma Jeane reconciled herself to that fact of life, the better. Ida was a pragmatic
woman, not usually sentimental. True, she could have been more sensitive, but she was who she was
and she never apologized for it.
It’s been said (by Marilyn, actually) that Norma Jeane was also not allowed to refer to Wayne Bolender
as her father. That’s not true at all. In fact, she called him “Daddy” and did so all of her life. His face
weather-beaten from being outdoors, Wayne had a wide, engaging smile and kind, humor-filled eyes. It
was as if Norma Jeane sensed his empathy for her, because she quickly became very attached to him.
Since he truly believed her circumstances were sad, he went out of his way to be nice. Nancy Jeffrey
recalled, “My mother was definitely the disciplinarian in our family, whereas my father was very quiet
and comforting. I’m sure that’s why Norma Jeane gravitated to him. She was very inquisitive. There
was a stool by the bathtub and I remember that she would sit there and, as he shaved, she would ask
him all sorts of questions.” Marilyn also once recalled, “Which way was east or south? How many
people are there in the world? Why do flowers grow? I had so many questions and Daddy always
seemed to know the answers.”
Unfortunately, Wayne could not offer much assistance to Norma Jeane if Ida was angry at her. Cowed
by his wife, he kept the peace by keeping his mouth shut. If he felt the girl was being treated unfairly,
he wouldn’t like it but neither would he do anything about it. Moreover, if he paid too much attention
to Norma Jeane or any of the other children who passed through the Bo-lender home, Ida would
become annoyed. With her dark eyes blazing, she would lash out at him and accuse him of coddling
them, thereby making them that much more difficult to raise. Then, of course, she would feel badly
about losing her temper and apologize to him hours later.

Within three years’ time, Ida Bolender had taken to little Norma Jeane and begun to love her as if she
were her own. Norma Jeane had bonded with her as well, and now called her “Aunt Ida.” Ida’s
intention had always been to see to it that this child be raised with a sense of independence, even at
such an early age. She knew that her life would be a difficult one and she’d already decided that she
wanted to prepare her for it. She thought of it as a mission, a part of God’s plan not only for Norma
Jeane but for herself as well. She was serious about it, too—as she was about most things. However,
that said, Ida often worked against her own intentions, because whenever her charge displayed any
degree of determination—when she was willful or stubborn—Ida reprimanded her as if trying to reel
her back in, lest she become too noncompliant. In Ida’s mind, there was a fine line between
independence and disobedience, and with Norma Jeane she seemed to have trouble defining it. Still,
she loved the child with all her heart and decided that she wanted to legally adopt her.
According to memories of family members—Monroes and Bolenders—Ida invited Gladys over to see
Norma Jeane, have supper, and discuss adoption possibilities. Grace McKee had explained to Ida that
Gladys’s behavior the day she tried to take Norma Jeane was the unfortunate consequence of her not
having taken her medication. Therefore, Ida tried to put the dreadful episode out of her mind. It wasn’t
easy, though. It’s probably a testament to Ida that she was ever able to strike a conciliatory tone with
Gladys, so traumatized was she by the events of that day. Still, she was the type of woman who always
found a way to stay focused on the business at hand. She needed to meet with Gladys—there was no
way around it—and she knew that Wayne was home and in the next room in case anything went wrong.
Once they finished their meal, Gladys began playing with her daughter. Ida walked over and lifted the
child into her arms. When she did so, Norma Jeane clung to her. Ida went to the couch and took her seat
next to Gladys. With the baby in her lap, Ida reminded Gladys that it had been three years since she’d
left her child in the care of her and her husband. She explained that they both loved Norma Jeane very
much and now thought it would be best if Gladys allowed them to adopt her. As she spoke, the child
fell asleep, cradled in Ida’s arms and seeming blissfully content.
After hearing Ida out, Gladys began to cry softly. She told Ida that she couldn’t bear to lose another
child. She had already lost two, after all. Certainly, Ida understood. However, as she patted Norma
Jeane on the back, it was easy to see that the little girl was very happy with her. Surely, she told Gladys,
“you want her to be this happy for the rest of her life, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Then, please. Make the proper decision,” Ida said, according to a later recollection. “Give this little
girl the life she deserves. It’s the best thing for her. She’ll always live deep in your heart, dear.”
Gladys rose from the couch. “Never,” she said firmly. Then she reached over to take her child from Ida.
However, as soon as she touched her, Norma Jeane began to cry. Her tears came without relief for at
least a minute. Even though Ida was still holding the little girl, she sat motionless, maybe waiting for
Gladys to reach out to her. The moment hung awkwardly, mingled emotions running together as both
women just stared at the child. Then, finally, Ida swung into action and began to comfort the girl. When
she could take no more, a tearful Gladys ran from the room and out of the house.
“Now It’s Time to Know Your Mother”
The years passed quickly…