Gladys Pearl Baker ( Monroe; May 27, 1902 – March 11, 1984), also known as Gladys Pearl Monroe Mortensen Eley, was the mother of American actress Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson). Born in Mexico, Baker grew up in the Los Angeles metro area. After suffering from mental illness and alcoholism, her father died in 1909.
Baker was married three times for three to four years each marriage. She was married for the first time at age 14 to Jasper Newton Baker. They had two children, and at the end of the marriage, Jasper and the children returned to his native Kentucky without Baker's knowledge. Baker moved to Kentucky to be near her children but left after four months. She had limited contact thereafter. Her short marriage to Martin Edward Mortensen ended in divorce. She had a relationship with Charles Stanley Gifford, who was separated from his wife, and they were parents to Norma Jeane Mortenson, but Gifford was never part of Norma Jeane's life. Baker struggled to take care of her daughter and placed her with a foster family weeks after her birth.
Prone to mood swings, Baker had a mental breakdown after the death of her son, the suicide of her father, and news that her studio was shutting down. From 1934 until the 1960s, Gladys spent most of her time in psychiatric facilities. During that time, Baker had a three-year marriage to John Stewart Eley, who died before she could divorce him. In her later years, she lived with her other daughter Berniece and then in a senior care facility.
Early life
Gladys Pearl Monroe was born on May 27, 1902 in Porfirio Dìaz (now named Piedras Negras, Coahuila) in Mexico, across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas. Her mother, Della Mae Monroe (née Hogan), was born in Missouri and she was from Bentonville, Arkansas, and her father, Otis Elmer Monroe, was a house painter from Indianapolis. He also sold portraits and landscapes that he had painted and dreamed of living in Paris. At the time of Baker's birth, Otis worked for the National Railroad of Mexico painting railway cars. Della was a midwife and an unofficial teacher. In the spring of 1903, the family moved to Los Angeles County, where Otis worked for the Pacific Electric Railway Company.
Baker and her brother, Marion Otis Elmer (born in 1905), had an unstable upbringing due to their father's alcoholism, frequent moves, and their parent's troubled marriage. Otis was prone to fits of rage and crying, migraines, dementia, and seizures. Her father was institutionalized at Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino County in November 1908. He had an advanced, untreatable case of neurosyphilis and was semi-paralyzed due to paresis. He was insane by the time of his death on July 22, 1909. Della supported the children as a domestic worker and by renting out rooms in her house.
She married a second time to Lyle Arthur Graves, a railway switchman supervisor at Pacific Electric, on March 7, 1912. They lived in Los Angeles at Graves' house. Della divorced him on January 17, 1914, charging Graves with "failure to provide, dissipation and habitual intemperance." Della lived in Oregon by September 1914 and she married a man named Chitwood, or Charles E. Young on July 26, 1916, in Portland, Oregon. Baker got along with this stepfather and had fond memories of living on a farm in Oregon. Della divorced again, this time citing alcoholism.
By 1916, Baker lived in Venice, Los Angeles with her mother and brother. Baker was a social teen at school who, like her mother, preferred older men. Marion went to live in San Diego with cousins in a household that was headed by a father. In 1917, Della began a tumultuous relationship with Charles Grainger, a widower with two sons. Della and Baker lived off and on at his nearby two-room bungalow. The couple was never married, but Della went by Mrs. Grainger. Baker was very unhappy living with Grainger, as she had been with Graves.
Marriage to Jasper Baker
At the age of 14, Baker met John Newton ("Jasper" or "Jap") Baker (1886–1951), a businessman from Kentucky who was a "violent drinker" who beat Baker during their marriage. He owned the apartment building that Della managed. They were married on May 17, 1917, with her mother's permission and a signed affidavit that Baker was 18. Baker gave birth to a son Robert Kermit "Jackie" (1918–1933), followed by a daughter, Berniece Inez Gladys (1919–2014). Jackie fell out of their car, suffered injuries, and was lame for the rest of his life. After abusive incidents, Baker filed for divorce from Jasper in 1921, and was awarded custody of the children, leading Jasper to kidnap the children and move back to his native Kentucky, where his mother helped raise them.