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1935

 

JANUARY :

Tuesday, January 15 : Gladys, admitted at the Norwalk State Hospital, was definitely declared insane (paranoïd schizophrenia).

Grace McKee pursued the necessary steps to become Norma Jeane's guardian, her legal representative.

She learned that in September, a place would be free at the Los Angeles orphanage.

In the meantime, she also managed that some neighbors of her, living in the West part of  Los Angeles (not far from Highland Avenue), the Giffens, welcomed Norma Jeane.

Harvey Giffen also worked in the movie industry. It was a middle-class family but they could give a comfortable and loving life to  Norma Jeane.

Grace, cautious, had inquired before deciding on the Giffens : it was a 3 children family, who welcomed other children. There were no risk they would keep Norma Jeane too long.

Norma Jeane stayed 2 months with them.

Having had the plan to go back to New Orleans where they were native to, the Giffens suggested to adopt Norma Jeane and to take her with them. But Gladys refused.

Because she looked after Norma Jeane with determination (each week, she sent a report to the authorities). Grace was able to ask the court to allow Norma Jeane to live with her, after her stay with the Giffens. The court investigated on Grace's guardian qualities and allowed Norma Jeane to live with Grace's mother, Emma Willette Atchinson (Grace was born  Atchinson but had kept the name of her second husband,  John McKee), who lived in an apartment overlooking  Lodi Place, in Hollywood.

 

Grace asked the court to be chosen as the only administrator of Gladys property ( ,). She had realized that Gladys business had to be regularized (to avoid that a man, pretending being Norma Jeane's father popped up from nowhere and  took the belongings over).

A potential seizure from the tax administration had to be avoid.
She knew that the sales and investments, money or real estate, requested a watchful eye. At least, in Norma Jeane's name, she would made flourish this money which would be used for the child education.

MARCH

Monday, March 25 : Grace declared under oath being the ideal candidate to be Norma Jeane's guardian, after the obligatory stay at the orphanage.

 

APRIL

Balance sheet of Gladys financial situtation 

- money in bank 6.75$

- insurance checks received  210$ 

- one small radio 15$

- balance due 350$ for a Plymouth 1933 Sedan

- balance due 207$ for a Franklin Baby Grand Piano

- Arbol Drive house 3 000$ 

SPRING

Grace met Ervin Silliman Goddard ; the real circumstances of their meeting are unknown, but a violent passion came up between them.

He was ten years younger than Grace. Native to Texas, he was divorced and father of 3 children he didn't see anymore.

His charm, his warmth and his dreams about a movie fame alternated with laziness phases which took him to the nearest bar for endless discussions with the regulars.

Such a man could only be seduced by Grace's energy that he found contagious, by his passionnate nature he found gratifying and by her supports and her adoration he found irresistible. Grace became infatuated with the strong young man, so handsome that she described him as a movie star. All the more so as he showed a passionate attention and that he wasn't stingy of compliments. 

JUNE

Saturday, June 1st : Norma Jeane celebrated her 9th birthday.

This day, Grace obtained the complete use of all the property of Gladys and the entire responsability of their future.

She only needed few days to bring the Plymouth back to its former owner (who cancelled Gladys debt) and to sell the piano.
The Arbol Street house was sold and the mortgage ended with no penalty.

Grace also drew up a list of things of which she expected to be repaid, the sums she had spent for Gladys and Norma Jeane's care :

- 24$ for the salary of a nurse named Julia Bennett

- 25$ paid to Emma Atchinson (Grace's mother) for Norma Jeane's care

- 49$ and 30 cents of  pension to the Santa Monica nursing home (for Gladys stay in February 1934)

- 43$ and 16 cents for clothes bought to Norma Jeane.

AUGUST

On Saturday, August 10, Grace McKee got married in Las Vegas (), with  "Doc" Goddard, at Grace's aunt's house (Minnie Willette, sister of Emma Atchinson, herself Grace's mother) who served as witness :

.

 

Back to Los Angeles, the newlyweds settled in a small bungalow located  6707 Odessa Avenue, Van Nuys 

(), in San Fernando Valley, on the other side of the Hollywood hills (,,,).

Norma Jeane stayed with them, and also Nona, one of Doc's daughters who had followed him in California.

The bungalow was humble, Grace and Doc having irregular jobs and not having, neither of them, some saving.

For the Goddards, Norma Jeane was someone else to feed and Doc insisted  to Grace to place her quickly at the orphanage, just  the time to  save some money. Grace conceded. To Norma Jeane, it was once again a link suddenly broken, another promise not  kept, once again, she was the bothering presence.

As  Ida Bolender had told her, her own mother had abandonned her, and she realized one's could get rid of her when she became troublesome.

SEPTEMBER :

Friday, September 13 : Grace dropped Norma Jeane off at the orphanage, the Los Angeles Orphans Home Society, located 815 North El Centro.

She was registered as the 3 463rd abandonned child at the institute in 25 years.

It was a red bricks house, comfortable and spacious, which dated from the colonial era; but it nevertheless remained  an orphanage (,).

The building could receive between 50 and 60 children.

Some of the little boarders still had their parents : in the 20's, a goof third of them were runaways children or  street children "forgotten" by poor people or immigrants  unable to feed a descendance they hadn't always wanted.

In the 30's, the poor parents could ask for a temporary housing for their children. Those ones, as Norma Jeane, were "temporary" occupants or "students".

The first weeks, Norma Jeane felt terribly marooned.

She stayed there until June 1937, just after her 11th birthday.

At the orphanage, the day began at  6.00 AM and the children put their rooms away, before going down for the breakfast.

The girls and the boys occupied separate wings of the building. They lived in clean and tidy rooms they shared with 4, 5 or 6 of their comrades.

Some employees crews took care of the meals and of the cleaning of the institute, but, to develop their sense of responsability, the children received 5 or 10 cents a week in exchange for housework, allocated according to the age and the physical condition of everyone.

The leaders of the orphanage, while encouraging the children to attend the Sunday Mass, didn't lay down any religious rule.

In her file, in 1935 appeared : "Girl healthy and normal, with good appetite and unifrom sleep. She seems happy, doesn't complain and even says she loves her classroom".

She attended the Vine Street School (Vine Elementary) (4^th and 5^th grade) (until June 1937), 5 minutes by foot from the orphanage.

Sometimes, on Saturdays, Grace took Norma Jeane for a walk, a lunch or to the cinema. They perferred the showings of the end of the afternoon where she could applause the stars. Among the movies, Norma Jeane saw  "Mutiny of the Bounty" with Clark Gable, who reminded her the solemn man with a moustache whose picture had decorated the walls of the Arbol Street house. The Saturday showing often took place at the Grauman’s Chinese Theater, and Norma Jeane tried to put her feet in the prints left by the stars on Hollywood Boulevard.

Grace told her  that she tried to help matters so that  the girl could come with her, at home.

 

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