My journey ends here...
1939
This year, Ana
Lower religious principles towards medicines, were put to the test.
Norma Jeane had her first period and had to endure, each month, violent pains.
At that time there weren't many drugs likely to reduce which was for Norma Jeane a real torture, writhing in pain, crying and moaning.
Thus, began a long story of gynecological problems which made Marilyn suffer throughout her life.
She had to face a new conflit for which she hadn't neither the spiritual ability, nor the intellectual evolution : if our body wasn't real and if God was only spirit and goodness, why this torture? Why her own body betrayed her? Aunt Ana tried to comfort her, to pray with her, to hold her in her arms, but "it was no use. I had to wait that it ends, that's all".Ana's life was not much thrilling and if Norma Jeane hadn't any friends, at least she felt secure with Grace's aunt
.
Once again, she was in a household where the family spirit was missing.
JUNE
Grace took the train with Norma
Jeane to San Francisco, where Gladys was hospitalized.
Norma Jeane's mother didn't show any violence, no aggression. She didn't seemed drugged and wasn't delirious. She was treated and visibly well looked after. Though, she didn't say a word. Neither during the first meeting with her daughter , nor during the lunch. Nothing until the moment where Norma Jeane and Grace went away. Then Gladys looked her daughter with sadness and calmly, and said : "You had so pretty feet".
They didn't see each other until 1945.
SEPTEMBER
Norma Jeane attended the Emerson High School (8th et 9th grade) (until June 1941).
There weren't enough money for new clothes and despite the alteration done by Ana, her blue skirt tightened her hips.
At the end of the year, she had already reached her adult height. Her silhouette had modeled, her breast became round with insolence under a tight-fitting sweater.
The bus ticket from Nebraska Avenue to Emerson High School only cost 5
cents, but she preferred going by foot, surrounded by many boys who
argued the privilege to carry her bag. This little game recurred in
the afternoon.
It was as if her child dream to push her way through the crowd of admirers had kind of realized. After years spent under Grace's guardianship. Norma Jeane knew how to attract attention with an adapted make-up but, from then on aware of her appeal, she woke up early to get dolled up before going to school.
In Los Angeles, everything was within reach : the cosmetics had spread, more daring and colorful and cheaper than everywhere else in USA.
Aged
13, Norma Jeane was completely aware of her seduction power, but she
intended to exercise it in full innocence, because she kept the memory
of the terrible scenes with Doc
Goddard and Jack Monroe.
Actually, sha hadn't an extraordinary beauty : neither her traits nor her hair were particularly remarkable, but she glowed.
During this Winter 1939-1940, she became kind of the star of Emerson Junior High School.
The school was an enormous building and she did her best to get out of anonymity. Neglected for long time by those from who she was entitled to expect tenderness, she already played a part, she took herself for a mermaid, while she was just a naive teenager, searching for some applause.
She madly needed to be loved, admired or even respected by hers, but didn't have any hope to reach it.Ana Lower's quiet and small apartment, without a telephone, didn't allow her to invite her comrades to drink a lemon soda after school, or to listen to Glenn Miller's records on the phonograph Grace had offered her for Christmas.
It was during her schooling at Emerson High School that she got small parts in several plays, "Petronella" and in a musical performed at school for Valentine's Day.
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