16 FEBRUARY 1943

The present lot is a rare letter from a then sixteen year old Marilyn Monroe to Grace Goddard, a friend of her mother Gladys who took responsibility over both of their affairs following Gladys diagnosis with paranoid schizophrenia. Monroe lived with Goddard and her husband Erwin ‘Doc’ Goddard in the summer of 1935, before she was placed in the Los Angeles Orphans Home #2, Hollygrove. Goddard would eventually become Monroe’s legal guardian in 1936, moving in with the Goddard’s in 1937. In 1942, Doc Goddard’s company moved him and the family to West Virginia. As Monroe could not leave the state due to child protection laws, and Monroe did not wish to return to an orphanage, it was decided she would marry the Goddard’s neighbor James Dougherty, with whom she moved in 1943 to Santa Catalina Island.
The letter offered here was written only eight months after this marriage and around the time of the couple’s move. In the lengthy letter, Monroe discusses life in California, the activities of her family members including her older sister Bernice, and a recent trip to Yuma, Arizona for the wedding of her brother in law. Importantly, Monroe also mentions that she might soon meet her real father, Charles Stanley Gifford, saying “I'm going into town one of these days to see Mr. S. Gifford, Oh Gracie, you just can't imagine how excited I am to think I am really going to see him at last. Golly, I just hope he will want to see me. I think [it will be] alright though, after he gets used to the idea. Ever since I have found out, it has practically made a new person of me. It's something I have to look forward to with the greatest pleasure, seeing him I mean.”
Authenticated and encapsulated PSA/DNA 7 NM.