My journey ends here...
1926
JUNE
Norma
Jeane Mortenson was born on Tuesday, June 1, 
at the Los Angeles General Hospital:
.
It was doctor Herman M.Beerman who gave birth to her.
On her birth certificate (
, 
; 
), she was identified as the daughter
of Gladys
Monroe (divorced from her first husband, Jasper
Baker ( 
), she had taken again her maiden name), living at 5454 Wilshire Boulevard, Hollywood, and of Edward
Mortenson, baker, with an unknown residence.
According to the versions, there would be other potential fathers, colleagues of Gladys at the Consolidated Film Industries
( 
), where she worked as a negatives cutter for the movie industry.
But the most commonly admitted supposition is that the most likely father of Norma Jeane, would have been Stanley Gifford, supervisor at the Consolidated Film Industries. This one, having divorced his wife in 1925, was known for adding up the extramarital affairs.
Gladys never talked about Gifford, neither in private, nor in public, and didn't ask him for any support, whether it was financial or affective, during the birth of little Norma Jeane. Gifford, as for him, despite the fact that he was the rumored father, didn't contributed to Gladys stay at the hospital and never recognized Norma Jeane as his daughter.
It was Gladys colleagues who organized a fundraising to help her to pay her stay at the hospital; they collected the sum of 140$.
Gladys,
separated from her husband Edward Mortenson but not yet divorced,
maybe didn't even know herself the identity of her daughter's father.
In the divorce request with Gladys he made in 1928, Martin Mortenson wasn't recognized as being the father of Gladys's child.
She belonged to what was called at this time the"good time girls", women with morals know as loose.
Gladys
didn't know anybody who could look after Norma Jeane and because she
didn't earn enough money, she couldn't give up her job at
the Consolidated Film.
Her life didn't agree with baby demands and Gladys was completely terrified by the responsability she had to lie with about the education of her child.
Disappointed by her life, her own mother's life, separated from her first children, Berniece (born in 1919) and Robert (born in 1917), taken away by their father Jasper Baker in 1923, Gladys found she was unable of real maternal affection.
So it became obvious that she had to place her daughter in care of a strong and loving family.
It was Della Mae
Monroe, Gladys mother, back from her exotic adventures (she had followed her husband Charles
Grainger
who was on a business trip in Borneo) who, 2 weeks after
Norma Jeane's birth, encouraged Gladys to place her grand-daughter in
care in a serious and devoted family, the Bolenders.
Della
Monroe was the neighbor of the Bolenders, who lived 459 East
Rhode Island in Hawthorn, a working class suburb of Los Angeles.
Week of June 13 to 19
Gladys placed Norma Jeane in care of Albert and Ida Bolender ( 
,
,
).
As many families of this era, the Bolenders supplemented their
income by taking care of children. For this responsability, they
received the sum of 25$ a month, either from the natural parents, or
from the State of California.
The Bolenders had a son, Lester, aged 2 months more than Norma Jeane, they had offically adopted.
They were quite poor : Albert was a mailman and Ida dealt with the education of her son and the children she was in charge of, with the house working and her Protestant parish.
Actually, they were members of the Unified Pentecostal Church to which alos belonged Della Monroe.
Gladys often visited her daughter at week-ends and took care of her
. Norma Jeane lived for 7 years with the Bolenders, in the four-rooms of their humble bungalow.
DECEMBER
On Monday, December 6, Ida Bolender and Della Monroe (
) made Norma Jeane baptized at the
temple of Sister Aimee
Semple MacPherson ( 
), a Pentecostal Minister, at the Four Square Gospel Church, located
4503 West Broadway in Hawthorn :
.
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