When Grace and Doc decided to move out of California, they approached Sam and Enid Knebelkamp to ask if they would be willing to take Norma Jeane into their home. Understandably, however, they had their hands full with their own daughter and had to turn the proposition down. Several other plans also fell through and eventually – feeling the need for a quick solution – Grace approached her neighbour Ethel Dougherty about the possibility of Jim marrying Norma Jeane.
Knowing how upset Jim had been when his relationship with Doris Drennen had ended, Ethel believed that a marriage to Norma Jeane would be a good alternative and spoke to her son about it. Unfortunately for her, however, he laughed off the suggestion, declaring that their relationship wasn’t serious and, besides, he felt that she was far too young to be marriage material.
But when Ethel explained that Grace was worried Norma Jeane would have to return to the orphanage, he showed a glimmer of interest in ‘saving her’; so much so that before he could change his mind, Ethel excitedly announced, ‘Let’s set it up for June.’
Some people have insisted that the entire courtship and marriage were only executed because of the ‘arrangement’ between Grace and Ethel Dougherty, but others insist that the couple did have a lot of feelings for each other and would have probably married at some point anyway.
‘The idea of an arranged marriage almost made him vomit!’ remembers Paul Kanteman, Jim’s nephew. ‘Yes there was an introduction and maybe a little push in that direction, but he would not allow anyone to push him into anything, let alone marriage. Believe me, he would never have gotten married to her if he hadn’t had great feelings for her. He wasn’t the worst looking guy on the block, and could get just about anybody he wanted or pursued.’ Indeed, Jim later admitted enjoying being thought of as Norma Jeane’s ‘Knight in Shining Armour’ and agreed to save her from the orphanage.
When Marilyn spoke of the marriage years later, she never mentioned Jim as a knight in shining armour. Instead, she always spoke without emotion, saying that the Goddards could not afford to take her to Virginia, so, ‘Instead of going back into a boarding house or with another set of foster-parents, I got married.’ She also declared that ‘it brought me neither happiness nor pain. It was like being retired to a zoo.’
It is true that Norma Jeane felt tremendously let down and abandoned by Grace Goddard and despised the idea of going back to the orphanage, so marriage was the better option at the time. However, Jim later insisted that they were genuinely happy with each other, and fell more and more in love every day. If Norma Jeane had any feelings to the contrary, she kept them well hidden but did admit to worrying that her future husband might be marrying her out of duty or obligation.
The couple went out shopping for a ring and, to Jim’s amazement, Norma Jeane insisted on a cheaper one than the ring he originally picked out. They returned to the Dougherty home to break the news that they were officially engaged, and Norma Jeane appeared extremely happy to other members of the family. Nevertheless, during a family picnic at Lake Sherwood, she was unusually pensive, despite Jim serenading her with his guitar. ‘Her only contribution to the fun was a quiet smile of pride – and six lemon pies,’ recalled sister-in-law Elyda Nelson.
Jim and Norma Jeane began dating regularly, and spent time with each other at the beach, hiking in the Hollywood Hills, boating at Pop’s Willow Lake and fishing at Lake Sherwood. It was at the lake that she first spent time with Jim’s nephew, Paul Kanteman, who was around eight years old at the time: ‘As I remember, I thought she was very pretty and nice. We had a row boat and Norma Jeane rowed while we fished. She did do a good job of rowing, and we caught some nice bass.’
Norma Jeane wanted to finish high school, ‘but I discovered that school and marriage don’t mix. We were poor, so naturally my job was to keep house on the lowest possible budget.’ She made arrangements to leave University High School, but when she told her social studies teacher, he exclaimed that she would ruin her life if she got married, insisting she probably didn’t even know what love was. It was this decision, to leave school before graduation, which would plague her for the rest of her life. She lied about it in interviews, claiming she graduated after her marriage, and forever tried to ‘catch up’ with her education by attended courses and paying for private tuition. But in the summer of 1942, the decision was made and she left fulltime education, shortly before her marriage, to concentrate on becoming Mrs Dougherty.
The wedding preparations were hastily but lavishly prepared and the couple received various items from friends and family, including a coffee set, gold-coloured vases, bath towels, wash cloths, embroidered dish towels and: ‘The most beautiful cocktail set I have ever seen in my life . . . It is really beautiful.’ The ceremony was to take place at 432 South Bentley, the home of Chester and Doris Howell, which had been picked out because Norma Jeane loved the idea of a ceremony based around the large, winding staircase. Aunt Ana busied herself with the dress, while Norma Jeane picked out the wedding rings, and notices appeared in the local paper. Even one of the younger members of the family, Paul Kanteman, had lots to do on the run-up to the big day: ‘A couple of weeks before the event my Mother and I went to Shulman’s Men’s store in Van Nuys to buy me some clothes that would be fitting for a ring bearer: a new pair of black pants, white shirt and black, shiny shoes. I remember going to school and telling all the kids that my Uncle was going to marry the most beautiful girl in the world and that I was to be their ring bearer. We had a rehearsal and I was taught how to do the hesitation step and how to hold the pillow that would have the ring pinned to it. I practiced that step all the time so that it would be just right and my Uncle Jim would be proud of me. If my mother asked me to do something, it was always to the hesitation beat – I’m sure everyone was glad when it was all over and my productivity level returned to full-time!’
Norma Jeane had been keen to live with her in-laws once the marriage had taken place, but on 8 June 1942 the couple found and leased a furnished apartment at 4524 Vista Del Monte and, according to Paul Kanteman, they were the first to live there. ‘It was small but nice,’ he remembered. ‘It had a small bedroom, living room, bathroom and a tiny kitchen; so tiny that if you were to turn around too quickly, you might stick your own finger in your eye!’
Tiny or not, it would be home for Mr and Mrs Dougherty, and Norma Jeane was so proud of it that she later drew a detailed floor plan and mailed it to Aunt Grace. ‘We sure have a cute little house,’ she wrote. ‘I’m going to take a picture of it and send it to you.’ Watching Norma Jeane take such pleasure in preparing her new home made Jim realize just how much he loved her. ‘I sometimes thought my heart would burst. She was everything to me,’ he wrote.
On 19 June 1942 at precisely 8.30 p.m., Norma Jeane glided down the winding staircase to be given in marriage by Aunt Ana. She looked every bit the blushing bride, shaking with nerves and dressed in an embroidered lace gown with long sleeves, full skirt and sweetheart neckline; her veil was white lace and she carried a bouquet of white gardenias.
Neither Gladys nor the Goddards were in attendance, but Mrs Bolender was there, at the insistence of the bride. Jim’s sister Elyda remembered her as ‘a docile and subdued little person, her pride and devotion cast a glow of warmth over the whole event’. Aunt Ana played the music whilst Jim’s brother Marion was best man and Lorraine Allen, a friend from University High, was Norma Jeane’s Maid of Honour. Also present were Joan and John Ingram, sister and brother-in-law of Jim’s ex-girlfriend Doris Drennen. Doris later recalled: ‘My sister Joan knew Norma Jeane better than I did. One time she told me that Norma Jeane was clever in using the two assets she had, her figure and her pretty face. Both would get her ahead in life.’
In all the wedding ceremony went without a hitch, and immediately afterwards there was a small celebration at the home of the Howells. This arrangement had caused some tension just days before the big day, as Elyda Nelson recalled: ‘Someone brought up the question of who would give the reception after the wedding. Norma Jeane spoke up promptly and said, “The bride’s parents are supposed to take care of that.” “I know dear,” one of the catty feminine neighbours said, “but you have no parents.” The look of sadness Norma Jeane gave me I’ll never forget, and to this day I detest the thought of that offending woman.’
After the reception, Jim’s brother Marion thought it would be funny to ‘kidnap’ Norma Jeane and force both her and Jim to go to the Florentine Gardens, a nightclub on Hollywood Boulevard. This too caused tension, however, when a waiter accidentally spilled soup all over Jim, and then he was persuaded to dance on stage with a chorus girl, much to Norma Jeane’s chagrin.
Years later, Jim reflected on the evening and decided that possibly Norma Jeane was looking for a reason to argue with him, as she was not looking forward to their wedding night. Plagued with insecurities, she had asked Grace Goddard if it were possible to ‘just be friends’ with her husband, and had ploughed through a sex education book given to her by Aunt Ana. Neither the talk nor the book made her feel any more confident, however, and on the wedding night itself, she spent a long time locked in the bathroom.
Although Norma Jeane tried her hand at cooking – baking bread every other day and experimenting on her new relatives – her lack of skills soon became very apparent: she put salt in Jim’s coffee by mistake, and famously cooked carrots and peas just because she liked the colour. Things were made worse by the fact that Jim’s brothers, Tom and Marion, had thought it a good idea to stock the newlywed’s cupboards with food. Unfortunately, the kindly gesture wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, as Paul Kanteman remembered some sixty years later: ‘They decided stocking the cupboards would be a great wedding present, as Uncle Jim and Aunt Norma would surely appreciate this. These guys were practical jokers and took all the labels off every item on the shelf. A lot of cans look alike as far as size is concerned, especially when they are undressed. Aunt Norma asked me to have lunch with her at the new house, and it was like a treasure hunt, shaking this can and that can until we found one that sounded right. We were going to have tuna salad sandwiches that day, but the can of tuna turned out to be water-chestnuts, and the peas turned out to be fruit cocktail! So when I say the lunch was different it really was, but Aunt Norma kept a stiff upper lip and laughed about it.’
At age sixteen, Norma Jeane had gone from a footloose young girl to a married woman in just a few short months. She quickly learned how to keep a clean, tidy house, and often spent time gossiping over the back fence with the other neighbours on the street. ‘It really keeps me busy cleaning the house and fixing meals,’ she wrote to Grace Goddard on 14 September 1942. ‘Everybody told me that it is quite a responsibility being a housewife and boy, I’m finding it out. But it really is a lot of fun.’
Fun it may have been, but the emotional upheaval of being married at such a young age was huge. Neither Jim nor Norma Jeane knew how to react in an argument, and she once went tearing out of the house in her nightclothes after a fight, only to be followed by a stranger in the street. On another occasion Norma Jeane furiously hit Jim over the head with a trashcan, after he’d criticized the fact that she’d mistakenly fed him raw fish. Jim tried to cool her off in the shower, only to find that this made her even more irate and he was forced to walk the streets until she had calmed down.
She also struggled with a lack of life-skills: she divided a bottle of scotch between four people; threw a cup of coffee over a sparking electrical socket; and she didn’t like nor understand the jokes told by Dougherty’s friends. Although he didn’t mean to hurt Norma Jeane’s feelings, Jim made the mistake of mocking her naivety and later reflected that he perhaps teased her too much. ‘I think my teasing was the one thing that made her unhappy during our marriage,’ he said. ‘I was young myself and didn’t know very much about how to treat a woman.’
Of course, Norma Jeane wasn’t Jim’s first serious partner, as he had been in a relationship with Doris Drennen for a long time before that. Since Norma Jeane had not had a serious boyfriend before, this ‘other woman’ bothered her considerably, as she later wrote to Grace Goddard: ‘Doris Drenen [sic] is Jim’s ex – remember? I remember only too well.’
Doris was unaware of the jealousy, however, as she recalled seventy years later: ‘The few times I saw her I would describe her as insecure and lonely, but truthfully I didn’t give her much thought. At that time her hair was more or less like mine, brown with blonde highlights from the Southern California sun, like a dishwater blonde. I was nineteen at the time and I was old enough to be rather sure of myself when it came to boys. I had no idea that she was jealous of me, if she really was.’
Norma Jeane held the grudge towards Jim’s ex-girlfriend for quite some time, though she really needn’t have worried, as by December 1942 Doris was married to Lieutenant George Grandstaff McCann Jr and would stay with him until his death in 1984. However, Norma Jeane wasn’t the only one prone to jealousy, as witnessed by Bob Stotts, who hadn’t seen his friend since she’d started dating Jim Dougherty: ‘I ran into Norma Jeane on the street for the first time in several years. She invited me home to meet her aunt, but when we got there the aunt wasn’t there. I stayed and we sat in the room – her on one side and me on the other – when suddenly the front door almost came off its hinges and there was Jim Dougherty, obviously expecting to see something not right. I met with him very briefly but then said I had to go, and quickly left.’
But in spite of the couple’s petty jealousies, the marriage did provide Norma Jeane with a stable and secure relationship. She clung to that idea ferociously, calling her new husband ‘Daddy’ and dramatically threatening to jump from the Santa Monica Pier if things ever went wrong between them. Her insecurities ran high and when Jim worked the graveyard shift at Lockheed, he never told her how dangerous the job was, for fear of how it would affect her. As it was, if he forgot to kiss her goodbye she would think she had done something wrong, and if she forgot to hide a small note in his lunchbox, she would apologize profusely when he returned.
‘Jimmy is so swell to me,’ she wrote at the time. ‘In fact I know that if I had waited five or ten years I couldn’t have found anyone who would have treated me better.’
Norma Jeane saw to it that she placed her husband’s interests above her own, and although she never liked to fish or hunt, she went along with Jim on hunting expeditions, learning to shoot a rifle that he had given to her as a present. Interestingly, his ex-girlfriend Doris Drennen had done the same: ‘Jimmy was always gentle and kind to me, but I would describe him as the “rugged type”; a man’s man. In high school he played football and was a star. He loved to hunt and shoot guns; he taught me how to shoot and [brother-in-law and sister] John and Joan would go hunting with us. I never really cared for that type of life style and somehow I can’t think of Norma Jeane as a hunting- shooting type either but she probably went along with it in order to fit in. I know I did.’
James Dougherty later remembered the interests he and Norma Jeane enjoyed together: ‘On a weekend we might go to a ranch in Lancaster called “Marcotti’s”; they grew alfalfa for cattle and we would hunt rabbits until we became sleepy and then curl up in the front seat of our Ford and sleep. Then sometimes we would pack a lunch and go to Lake Sherwood; rent a boat and row out on to the lake and fish. We always caught enough fish for a meal – we enjoyed the fresh air and the sunshine. For a night out it would be the movies or once in a great while the Coconut Grove where we dined and danced. Then there was Gobel’s Lion Farm in Thousand Oaks; that’s where a lion peed on Norma and she was mortified. We would visit the farm when they fed the lions and boy did they roar!’
Norma Jeane bonded well with Jim’s family and although Marion Dougherty was too much of a tease for her to form a real bond with him, Paul Kanteman remembered that they ‘got along just fine and she thought he was pretty funny’. She loved Jim’s brother Tom, and Jim later remarked that she thought his father was ‘the greatest guy in the world’. Paul Kanteman agrees with this prognosis: ‘When Grandpa met Norma Jeane he thought she was a treasure and the feelings were mutual. From their first meeting there was an attraction for each other that made a bond that was as if they had been together since birth. Maybe she was like a granddaughter to him and her feelings seemed to be the same towards him. She looked up to him and respected all that he said. They were great friends from the first meeting.’
In Autumn1942 Norma Jeane attended a baby shower for Nellie Atkinson, daughter of former foster-parents George and Maude. ‘She got so many lovely things and I had such a nice time,’ Norma Jeane later wrote.
She also spent time with Jim’s sister: ‘She was the most beautiful little creature I had ever seen,’ Elyda later said. ‘Not only did she have beauty, but everything else it takes to make a lady. I loved her from the beginning.’ Jim would always take Norma Jeane to visit on Sundays, and as time went on, Jim’s young wife and Elyda spent more and more time together: ‘During the first year, Norma Jeane came to my home many times, to play with my son, Larry. “My first baby has to be a boy,” she told me. She was wonderfully kind and patient with me while I was carrying my little Denny, who was two weeks overdue. At the time I was staying with my mother in Van Nuys, so Norma Jeane stayed with me during the day, and Jim picked her up at night.’
When the baby was eventually born, Norma Jeane helped look after him, and as a result she became extremely fond of all Elyda’s children, as Paul Kanteman remembered: ‘Aunt Ana was a Christian Scientist and Norma Jeane went along with their teachings and practices. I remember one incident that related to my brother who at the time was a baby about ten or eleven months and had become very ill with Scarletina and bronchial pneumonia. He was in very bad condition and Aunt Norma and Aunt Ana both went to work on him in prayer and whatever else they do, and he recovered. He is now retired and is about 6 foot 3 so I guess something worked.’
The first Christmas spent as a married couple was almost certainly spent at the home of Jim’s parents, which was the biggest of all the Dougherty homes. It was always the gathering spot for family get-togethers and holidays, and was a haven of fun and music. Paul Kanteman remembered: ‘My grandfather played the fiddle, guitar, banjo and chorded piano, while my mother played the fiddle and a little violin and sang. Aunt Norma would just sit there with her eyes glued on Uncle Jim when he would sing a love song to her or some cute holiday song that was directed to her. She would occasionally join in and sing a little but as I recall would rather just watch.’
In January 1943 the lease on the Vista Del Monte apartment ran out at the same time as Jim’s parents were out of town. As a result, the couple moved into the Dougherty family home at 14747 Archwood Street, which they shared with Jim’s brother Tom. It was during this time that Norma Jeane received news that was to change the course of her life forever. Gladys decided it was time for Norma Jeane to discover who her father was, and sometime between September 1942 and February 1943, she was informed. Jim Dougherty later remembered: ‘Her mother told Grace that Stanley Gifford was her father, and Grace told my mother, who told Norma Jeane.’ The young woman was bowled over by this news, and on 16 February 1943, she wrote excitedly to Grace, sharing her plans to visit Mr Gifford as soon as possible, and declaring that the discovery of her father had made her a new person. ‘It’s something I have to look forward to,’ she told her former foster-mother.
Norma Jeane was determined that Gifford would be pleased to see her, so when a friend read her fortune and predicted that they would successfully meet, she became even more excited. But when she finally found the confidence to contact him by telephone, it was all in vain. Jim Dougherty remembered: ‘She called him and he hung up on her. It took a lot of tender loving care to bring her out of the disappointment.’
Shortly after this incident, in spring 1943, the couple moved into a new home, this time located at 14223 Bessemer Street. During Norma Jeane’s stay at this house, she was particularly distressed one day to notice a cow standing out in the rain. As Dougherty arrived home, he was shocked to see his wife trying desperately to pull the creature into the house and even more surprised when she asked him to help. Jim’s nephew Wes Kanteman remembers: ‘The cow was a young Jersey Heffer that had beautiful eyes and Norma Jeane used to stand by her pen and just stare at her, remarking at how pretty she was. Then the torrential rain came one night and the cow was standing by the fence and Norma Jeane apparently thought she wanted in so she opened the gate and was going to bring her into the house. After much conversation about the matter, Uncle Jim convinced her that she really belonged in her pen and Norma Jeane finally gave in and it was over, but she still thought that the cow would have been better off in the living room!’
Wet cows aside, the couple settled nicely into their home, until the Second World War prompted Jim to leave his employment at Lockheed to do something for his country. He decided to join the merchant marines and was sent to San Diego for basic training, before moving to Catalina Island to take up the post of physical instructor at the Maritime Service Training Base. It was just a short time later that Norma Jeane joined her husband in a $35-a-month hillside apartment (possibly 323 Metropole Avenue, Avalon), which boasted a living room, bathroom and kitchen.
Life on the island was idyllic in many ways: ‘We had a very normal life,’ Jim later recalled. ‘Norma cooked and cleaned and I was the breadwinner.’ She also spent time shopping at local stores, and wrote to her sister, Berniece, urging her to move to the island too. She would spend hours washing her hair and face, and gave just as much attention to her dog, Muggsie, whom she adored: ‘She spent hours bathing him, grooming him, teaching him tricks,’ remembered Elyda Nelson. ‘They were inseparable when Jim was not home.’
In the evenings, the couple would sit on the porch and make plans for the future, or Jim would play guitar and sing; sometimes they invited friends around to dance to tunes on their new record player. ‘We would visit the beach and swim or skin dive for abalone and bosters or just lay in the sun,’ Dougherty later remembered. His nephew, Paul Kanteman, confirms this: ‘Norma Jeane thought it was really something that her guy could disappear into the Pacific Ocean and come up with something on his spear for dinner that evening.’ Unfortunately, watching Jim dive wasn’t the only thing that interested Norma Jeane, who revelled in the attention given to her by the other men on the beach. Understandably Jim didn’t appreciate this half as much, especially when one of the lifeguards took an overly keen interest in his wife.
The attention Norma Jeane received whilst at the beach – any beach – was recalled by Grace Goddard’s great niece, Jo Olmstead: ‘I do remember that my Mom [Diane Knebelkamp] said Norma Jeane took her to the beach a few times and that she was so beautiful the boys just stared at her.’
At Christmas 1943, a dance was held at the Catalina Casino, which Norma Jeane had visited ten years before during a rare trip with her mother. The evening was not a success, however, as Jim became upset with the comments and dance requests from male admirers aimed at his young wife. Eventually he’d had enough and told Norma Jeane that they were going to leave. ‘Well I will come back as soon as you’re asleep,’ she threatened, but Jim stood firm; she could come home with him now or not at all. They returned home together.
Although Jim was keen to start a family, Norma Jeane did not share his enthusiasm. She questioned her sister-in-law about child-rearing, and despite telling her that she certainly wanted to have a baby one day, the idea of becoming a parent terrified her. This fear of childbirth was sparked during her upbringing with Grace Goddard. The women in her family had a long history of problems, miscarriages and still births, and Grace’s sister, Allis Atchinson, was the only one who’d had any living children. Unfortunately, she was to die herself in 1931 whilst giving birth to her daughter, Diane.
‘Allis already had one child,’ remembered Diane’s daughter, Jo Olmstead, ‘but was warned by her doctor that it would be dangerous for her to become pregnant again. She desperately wanted a child though, and it resulted in her death.’ The child’s father gave permission for Allis’ elder sister, Enid Knebelkamp, to adopt the child and forever more the death of Allis would add to the sorrow and fear that had haunted the Atchinson women for many years.
According to Catherine Larson, friend and neighbour of Enid Knebelkamp, the entire family – including Norma Jeane – talked endlessly about the subject of death in childbirth. ‘That whole family positively had a terror of – an obsession with – death in childbirth. I’ve never seen any other family like it!’ Catherine later said. Catherine’s friend, James Glaeg, recalled: ‘Enid Knebelkamp lived in constant fear of death in childbirth, and Catherine told me it was discussed on innumerable occasions with Marilyn/Norma Jeane.’
‘I don’t remember that fear was specifically discussed but rather sorrow,’ recalled Jo Olmstead. ‘I have no doubt that these things were discussed with Norma Jeane; my mother and grandma Enid discussed them with me when I was a young child. I can certainly understand why Norma Jeane would fear childbirth.’
This is reinforced by Jim Dougherty, who remembered that Norma Jeane was always lukewarm to the idea of having a baby, and at one point became hysterical when her period was late and she mistakenly thought she might be pregnant. However, when Jim was told he would have to leave Catalina in order to fight for his country, Norma Jeane suddenly became scared of being alone, and uncharacteristically begged him to make her pregnant. This time, however, it was Jim who was against the idea, worried that if he didn’t return from war, she would be left with a child to raise on her own.
Concerned about leaving his young wife, Jim arranged for her to stay with his parents while he was away. On the day he left, Norma Jeane presented him with an expensive watch (which she had used their entire savings to buy), before going to visit her sister-in-law Elyda. As she walked up the path, an admirer in a convertible wolf-whistled, causing her to explode with fury: ‘Move on old man,’ she yelled. ‘Go pick on somebody nearer your own age.’
That night there was a family meeting between the Dougherty parents and siblings, and Norma Jeane asked if mother-in-law Ethel could get her a job at Radioplane, a company which made target planes for Air Corps gunnery practice. Ethel worked as a nurse there and agreed to try her best for her daughter-in-law, who couldn’t bear the idea of endless hours of inactivity.
True to her word, on 18 April 1944, Ethel got her a job at the factory, as a typist. It didn’t go quite to plan though, as Marilyn later recalled: ‘I only did 35 words a minute and didn’t do them very well, so they gave me a job inspecting parachutes.’ Unfortunately, that didn’t last long either: ‘They quit letting us girls do that and they had the parachutes inspected on the outside but I don’t think it was because of my inspecting.’
They moved her over to spraying parachutes, which her mother-in law-objected to immediately, as Elyda later recalled: ‘I remember Mom bawling her out for working in the paint shop. “Honey,” she said, “you’ll ruin your beautiful hair – and all those fumes – it’s just not good for your health.” But Norma Jeane persisted, even though she came home looking a wreck.’
Regardless of any health concerns she may have had, Norma Jeane worked ten hours a day and was on her feet the entire time. Still, she became a popular and trusted member of the team; she was rated above average by her managers, admired by her male co-workers and, in July 1944, she was even crowned Queen of the Radioplane picnic, winning a $50 war bond and a mention in the 15 July edition of the Radioplane Static. Then on 31 August she was mentioned once again after winning a gold button for making a useful suggestion with respect to plant operations.
But despite her popularity with male colleagues, she remained faithful to her husband, as Elyda Nelson later wrote: ‘Naturally Norma Jeane was aware that other wives and sweethearts dated while their men were away, but she never did. Furthermore, she never gossiped about these situations nor would she listen to gossip.’
Although living with her in-laws couldn’t have been the easiest of situations, she seemed to accept life at the Hermitage Street house, and would often have morning coffee with her mother-in-law, before going shopping together later in the day. Still close to her new nephews, Norma Jeane was pleased when she heard that Paul Kanteman was coming for an extended visit, and over sixty years later he remembered the week with great affection: ‘We hadn’t seen each other for a while and I really did miss her. Grandma asked me if I would like to spend a week or so with them and Aunt Norma. Well my response obviously was “Yes”, and it was good to see her again as she was my buddy and I wanted to spend some time with her.
‘She asked me a few days later if I would like to have lunch with her and I replied, “Yes, as long as you aren’t cooking.” She said, “There is a great hamburger place on the west end of the Valley called The Hangmans Tree.” I thought that sounded great as I certainly loved hamburgers, so off we went.’ When there was a mix up over the drinks order, ‘She stood her ground and they made the right coke, and it was a good lunch. Aunt Norma could be one tough lady if provoked.’
She could be extremely late too, which caused problems with her in-laws; as Paul witnessed during his holiday: ‘A couple of days after the coke incident, Grandma asked if we would like to go out for dinner and a movie that evening. We all thought it would be a great idea and all we had to do was pick the movie. Well evening came and it was time for dinner but Aunt Norma wasn’t quite ready. We waited a little while and then decided to go to dinner without her. When we came back to pick her up for the movies, Grandma went in to see if she was ready yet and came back out of the house alone, telling Grandpa that Norma Jeane was still wandering around without a stitch on! Grandma sounded a little perturbed and we went to the movies without her.’
‘I just love that girl,’ Ethel later lamented, ‘I never knew anyone more unselfish, but she is so lost in her own world that she frightens me.’
In Autumn 1944, Norma Jeane decided she wanted to visit her sister, Berniece, in Detroit, along with Grace Goddard in Chicago. (Two postcards dated 28 October 1944 place the trip at least two months later than sometimes thought.) She cleared out her savings account, and despite suffering from travel sickness, she made the trip alone to reconnect with her foster family, and connect to her real family for the very first time.
When Norma Jeane arrived in Detroit, Berniece, her husband Paris Miracle, his sister Niobe and Berniece’s daughter Mona Rae met her at the station. They were immediately bowled over by the eighteen-year-old in cobalt blue suit and a heart-shaped brimmed hat, and drove her to Canada for a visit to a bird sanctuary, before taking her to the Miracles’ apartment, where she was to stay for most of her holiday.
The trip was a real confidence-booster for Norma Jeane, who had never spent any time with her blood family – the last time being the disastrous year or so she lived with her mother. Both girls only vaguely knew Gladys, and the trip enabled them to discuss their mother and their late brother, Robert.
The trip was cut short when Jim unexpectedly announced that he would be returning to California very soon on leave. Norma Jeane bid farewell to her sister, and travelled to Illinois to visit with the Goddards. During the short visit to Chicago and Huntington, she saw Grace’s new workplace and reacquainted herself with Doc Goddard’s daughter, Bebe, spending time with her friends at the Goddard home, 322 Wilson Court, and Maully’s South Side Confectionary at 915 8th Street.
‘She didn’t look like Marilyn Monroe at the time,’ recalled Nelson Cohen, who married Bebe in 1950. ‘I only met her briefly but she was pleasant enough, perfectly normal.’
Another friend, Diane DePree Miller, describes Norma Jeane as, ‘An ordinary looking girl, with light brown hair. She was very shy and kept to herself.’
The visit was brief, but enjoyable, and in a letter to Grace dated 3 December 1944, Norma Jeane described just how much the trip meant to her and how much she missed her foster-mother. As well as yearning for Grace, however, the letter seems to indicate that Norma Jeane was helping her out financially too: ‘I shall send you more money a little later,’ she wrote. This generosity towards friends and loved ones was something that stayed with Norma Jeane throughout her life, and would often get her into financial trouble herself.