"I want to grow old without a facelift; I want to have the courage to be faithful to the face I have made. Sometimes I think it would be easier to avoid old age, to die young, but then you would never complete your whole life, would you? (Monroe) Even if this statement did not come true, Marilyn Monroe had a memorable life full of ups and downs. Who would think that such a successful young woman had a life so unstable? On June 1, 1926, Gladys Mortensen gave birth to a baby girl at 9:30 am in Los Angeles, California. No one is sure who her father is because her mother was with many men when she became pregnant, but she believes it was Martin Edward Mortensen or Charles Gifford. Her birth name was Norma Jeane Baker or Norma Jeane Mortensen; known to us as Marilyn Monroe. She has two older half-siblings on her mother's side who she never met Norma to live with Ida and Albert Bolender, who raised her until she was seven. It's unclear why Gladys asked someone else to raise her little girl, but being a working single mother during the Great Depression wasn't easy. Others believe she simply didn't have the interest or commitment to raise a child. In 1933, after Norma's seventh birthday, her mother took her back from foster care and decided that she would try to raise her on her own. They never had a stable place to live and Norma was not used to the turbulence and drinking in her new home. Several months later Gladys began to be very depressed and avoided all the people around her. He was unable to face his life and entered a retirement home and then hospital. The rest of Norma's life would now be filled with chaos as she had nowhere to go other than foster homes. In 1935, when Norma was nine years old, her mother was declared legally insane. Grace McKee, Gladys' best friend; he applied to be Norma's legal guardian. While she waited for the court to appoint a new guardian, she was sent to live in the Los Angeles Orphans Home until she was eleven. In 1937, McKee and Ervin "Doc" Goddard married and became Norma's guardian. After six months with "Aunt Grace" and family, she was sent to live with distant relatives in Compton.