The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

Norma Jeane Learns She Has a Half Sister

By the winter of 1938, Gladys Baker was more desperate than ever as she continued her unhappy life, now as a patient in the Agnews State Hospital in San Jose, California. In fact, she almost managed to escape. Precipitating her attempt was a series of telephone calls from Edward Mortenson, her former husband and the man she’d listed on Norma Jeane’s birth certificate as the child’s father. Gladys actually thought Mortenson was dead by this time, but he was alive and well and telling her he was interested in resuming their relationship. How could that occur, though, if she was locked up? Gladys—who would prove with the passing of the years to have the greatest determination when it came to trying to gain her freedom—somehow got her hands on a nurse’s uniform, put it on, and then slipped out of the sanitarium. It was hours before she was found, walking down the street with no apparent destination. She later explained that Mortenson had promised to meet her at a specific location if she managed to escape, but that he didn’t show up. She was returned to the facility with no trouble, though she was heartbroken. Later that same week, when Grace Goddard arrived for a visit, Gladys begged her to “get me out of here.” However, Grace knew better. Gladys was obviously mentally incompetent and was exactly where she needed to be at that time in her life. Grace had no choice but to turn down her friend’s pleas. However, Gladys then decided to try another route. She wrote to her long-lost daughter, Berniece. Of course, she didn’t know exactly how to locate her, so she sent the letter to the address of one of her ex-husband’s relatives in Flat Lick, Kentucky. Somehow, the correspondence ended up in Jasper’s hands. He wasn’t sure how to proceed, but after discussing the matter with his wife he reluctantly decided to give it to Berniece. By this time, Berniece was nineteen. She’d just been married, was living in Pineville, and was pregnant with her first child—Gladys’s grandchild.

Berniece was stunned to receive a letter from her mother, a woman she had long ago decided was probably dead. Though she didn’t know much about Gladys, what she did know was not favorable. For years, her stepmother, Maggie, had criticized Gladys for leaving her children behind, as if Gladys had had a choice in the matter. Berniece’s daughter, Mona Rae Miracle, says that anything her mother learned about Gladys had to be “squeezed like water from a stone from Jasper and Maggie.” Berniece, however, was still always curious about her mother and kept a small framed photograph of her on her dresser. Often she would remark to Jasper about Gladys’s beauty. Jasper agreed that, indeed, Gladys was a gorgeous woman, but, he said, she was also an irresponsible woman. It seemed clear to Berniece that she would never have much of a relationship with her mother, and so after many years of wondering, she had made up her mind that Gladys was dead. Then, out of the blue, she received a letter from her. Most of Gladys’s missive was a long rant begging her daughter to help her get out of the mental hospital. She asked Berniece to get in touch with an aunt of Gladys’s, Dora, in Oregon and ask her to also try to get a release for her. Then she gave Berniece some stunning news. She told her that she had a twelve-year-old half sister named Norma Jeane. Gladys also sent Norma Jeane’s and Grace Goddard’s addresses to Berniece and suggested that she contact both of them.

Berniece was surprised: She was amazed that her mother was alive, stunned to learn that Gladys was in a mental hospital, and shocked to learn that she had a half sister. There was no question about it: She wanted a relationship with her. She decided to first write to Grace. A week later, she received a return letter from Grace, who was elated to hear from her. She suggested that Berniece write to Norma Jeane. Then Grace told Norma Jeane that she had a half sister. “Grace decided that it might do Norma Jeane some good to know that she wasn’t really alone in the world,” recalled a relative of Grace’s, “that she had a family member who wanted to know her. It all seemed to come together at the same time, Gladys’s letter to Berniece, Grace’s decision that it was the right thing to do to have Berniece contact Norma Jeane, and then telling Norma Jeane about Berniece.”

Norma Jeane was astonished to learn that she had a half sister in Kentucky. “It was like the answer to a prayer,” said a Monroe family member. “It changed everything for Norma Jeane. She wanted to know Berniece, everything about her. She wrote her a letter and sent a picture of herself. Berniece wrote back immediately with her own photograph. It was an amazing connection from the start. From the very beginning, Norma Jeane signed all of her letters ‘Your Sister.’ She and Berniece then began a new friendship, one that would last throughout Norma Jeane’s life.”

“We grew up feeling abandoned,” Berniece would explain many years later, “and, though both of us were told we were pretty and talented, we still needed courage and strength. We got that from each other.”