J. Taraborrelli: The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

In her prime, Della had been a spectacularly attractive woman. Back then, a mane of full, thick brunette tresses had framed an almost constantly smiling face set with stunning blue-green eyes. She was eye-catching and full of life. However, time had not been kind. Her skin, once so porcelain and smooth, had loosened and lost its glow. Now she appeared unkempt, her hair thinning to wiry locks that seemed to lie lifeless atop her head. It hadn’t simply been the expected signs of aging that altered Della, either. She had once been gregarious with a quick wit and exuberant personality. There had always been a dazzling smile under her bright red lipstick. However, over time, the light behind her eyes began to flicker. As she got older, she became remote. It was as if a great distance had come between the world and Della Monroe’s experience of it. Everyone she knew noticed this gradual change in her, but no one knew what to do about it. Actually, it had started with the birth of her children.

“The way I heard it, she would fall into deep depressions after having the babies,” recalled Louise Adams, whose mother was the secretary to Reverend Charles Lewis, pastor of the Hawthorne Community Church. “My mother said [Della] would cry uncontrollably at the drop of a dime [ sic ], and she had never been one to cry. Then she would be fine. But a few days later, she would start crying again, for no apparent reason, and she would cry for days, or at least it seemed like it. Then, fine. She wouldn’t eat and got painfully thin. She couldn’t sleep. No one knew what was wrong with her, but there wasn’t much anyone could do back then but just worry about it and hope for the best.”

It’s possible, of course, that Della Monroe was suffering from postpartum depression. However, with modern obstetrics procedures just starting to be developed in the early 1900s, grave symptoms such as hers were often ignored or just attributed to “baby blues” and not taken seriously. In her case, though, whatever was happening to her as a result of her pregnancies would be a harbinger of things to come. Of course no one knows for sure, but the family’s belief is that Della’s pregnancies triggered a mental illness in her that was never reversed.

Time, however, could not steal from Della the memories of her untamed youth. She had often welcomed the wandering eyes of the opposite sex, which threatened her peers and made the possibility of having many close girlfriends remote. Therefore, when she sought companionship, it was usually in the company of men. Indeed, earlier in her life, Della would happily share a stiff drink with a fellow, often with no desire at all for any sort of romantic relationship. She was “one of the guys” during many happy hours at the local watering hole, which led to a good number of groggy late-night encounters of the intimate variety, and of course the inevitable tongue-wagging of women familiar with her behavior.

Now past her prime, Della was living with a man named Charles Grainger at her home on East Rhode Island Street in Hawthorne. She insisted they were man and wife, but no one ever saw a marriage certificate—nor did anyone believe they’d ever been wed. Though her desire for male attention had weakened, Della’s instinct to package herself in what she considered stylish attire remained—thus her visit to church on this day in October 1925, where she would meet her neighbor across the street, thirty-seven-year-old Ida Bolender.

Obviously, Della’s life had been very different from Ida’s. Whereas Della had always been a free spirit who enjoyed what would most certainly have been considered in the early 1900s a loose morality, Ida’s personality was constricted by a rigid religious code. Had Ida been aware of some of Della’s past experiences, she wouldn’t have allowed herself to even share the same oxygen with her. As it was, the two women formed an unusual bond. In fact, for her wardrobe, Della had come to depend upon the constant stream of garish garments and baubles found only at Ida’s booth at the rummage sale. Over time, Ida would even leave a smattering of the gaudiest of merchandise on display—clothing and other items that no one else would ever think to purchase—knowing full well that even these most offensive pieces would be eagerly snapped up by Della.

As Della’s style “dealer,” Ida made a decent amount of money for the church—and possibly even a bit for herself. Eventually, she even opened up her home to Della in order that she might purchase items without waiting for the next sale. On one such occasion in October 1925, Della noted how well-behaved two foster children being raised by Ida were, and then mentioned that her own daughter, twenty-five-year-old Gladys Baker, was pregnant with her third child. The pregnancy posed quite a problem, she explained, since Gladys was not married. Gladys had been pursuing a career in Hollywood, Della said, working for Consolidated Studios as a film cutter. In fact, as she went on, Della had actually given her some of the clothing she had purchased from Ida. She wanted to brighten her daughter’s days, she said, because she’d never been the same since giving up the first two children she bore. Both were now being raised by her ex-husband and his new wife. After losing them, Della admitted, Gladys became a heavy drinker.

As it happened, Della was getting ready to join her husband, Charles, in India, where he’d been transferred by the oil company for which he worked. She was going to leave in December. He didn’t seem anxious to see her, though. In a postcard to her, he wrote that he felt the trip would be “too much” for her and that perhaps she should “stay where you are for an indefinite period of time.” Della’s mind was made up, though. However, she told Ida that she was worried about what might happen to Gladys and the new baby. “I’m not going to be around to see to it that things are okay,” she explained. Ida said, “Well, maybe you should stay behind until you know they are okay.” Della thought it over a moment and decided, “No, I don’t think so.”

During that conversation, Ida became very concerned not so much about what might happen to Gladys, but over the future of the child she was carrying. It was clear to Ida that not only were Gladys’s work schedule and social life going to be an issue in raising the new baby, but there was also another undeniable truth, one to do with morality. There was a question about the paternity of Gladys’s pregnancy. Della said that she didn’t quite know who the father of her daughter’s baby was—and any number of men could have been candidates. This unfortunate situation was more than just distasteful to Ida, it was unseemly. In her view, neither Gladys—given what she had heard—nor Della—given what she had seen—was, as she put it, “following the Lord’s path.”

Ida quizzed Della about just how Gladys planned to raise the child, especially if Della was to be out of the country. Would it be in accordance with God’s plan? Had they considered what school the young one would attend? Was she going to be able to set a good example for him or her? As Ida saw it, it was an untenable situation, so much that she could barely believe they were even discussing it. In her mind, all questions were moot since Gladys wasn’t even married, “and in this situation, she most certainly should not be allowed to keep that child,” she said.

“And what about you, Della?” Ida asked with a faint smile. “You know, you’re not the most stable woman, either.”

Della—according to a later recollection—seemed to not be able to connect to what Ida was talking about. On some level, though, she must have known that Ida was referring to her unpredictable mood swings, and especially her insistence of late that she was the subject of some sort of surveillance. “When I leave the house, I know I’m being followed,” she had often told Ida. “As long as they know that I know, I feel I’m fine. However, I never let my guard down. I’m not a stupid woman.” Paranoia had become such a recurring theme in Della’s life that her friends had begun to disregard it, even if they did find it upsetting.