June 1st is a day that provides us with many historical and national celebrations. Let’s consider one of historical significance. On this day in 1926, Norma Jeane Mortenson was born. Her mother’s name was Gladys. However, the proven identity of her father was never known. Thus began a life that no child should have to endure.
Speaking of her childhood in a 1954 interview, Norma Jeane said, “”I was never used to being happy… You see, I was brought up differently from the average American child because the average child is brought up expecting to be happy.“1
Early on, Gladys’s mother took Norma Jeane to the Foursquare Gospel Church to be baptized by the flamboyant evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson.”2 Gladys, though, could not provide a stable environment for Norma Jeane. Gladys, her parents, and her brother all had forms of mental illness ranging from manic depression to paranoid schizophrenia and were frequently institutionalized. Norma Jeane was placed in the home of Ida and Wayne Bolender of Hawthorne, California, an extremely religious couple who constantly told Norma Jeane that she was going to hell because she liked to sing and perform.
Eventually, Norma Jeane would be run through the foster care system. Multiple homes would keep her for a while before bouncing her to the next. At the age of 11, Norma Jeane was molested and raped in one of these homes.3
At the age of 16, Norma Jeane could think of only one way to escape the orphanage/foster care life. Living with an aunt at the time who was moving and could not take Norma Jeane with her, the aunt introduced her to a 21-year old factory worker, Jim Dougherty. A relationship developed and they were soon married.
For the first year, it seemed to be wedded bliss. But, once her husband was shipped out to fight in WWII, Norma Jeane found modeling as a career, using her body to get her what she needed to survive. This was against her husband’s wishes but with him out of the country, Norma Jeane found the attention intoxicating, so much so that she quickly drifted away from him. While serving overseas, Jim received notice that Norma Jeane had filed for a divorce which was granted in 1946.
Finally, Norma Jeane broke into acting and chose the name by which she is most familiar: 
Marilyn Monroe. Her life story is filled with glamour, and all that a Hollywood lifestyle provides, including plenty of sex, booze, and drugs. “On August 5, 1962, Monroe was found dead from an overdose of barbiturates in her home in Brentwood, California. She was 36 years old.”4
The tragedy of a wasted life makes me ask, “What if?”
What if she had two loving parents?
What if she knew her dad? The man they thought was her dad refused to even talk to her even though she reached out to him several times even in her adult years.
What if her mom and grandparents were mentally/emotionally stable?
What if the foster system would have been better?
What if she had never been molested and raped?
What if someone would have had her in a church that loved and didn’t condemn, telling her about a Savior who would cleanse her soul, making her white as snow?
What if a loving, caring family would have taken her in?
What if she had never been exposed to Hollywood and the sexualization of women?
What if things would have been different in her life and we had never heard of a Marilyn Monroe. Instead, there was a sweet little girl who fit a sweet, unpretentious name like Norma Jeane. Those what ifs will never be answered for her life. But they could be answered for the life of another.
The Bible makes a repeated statement about the Lord. Psalms 68:4-5 says, “Sing unto God, sing praises to his name: extol him that rideth upon the heavens by his name JAH, and rejoice before him. (5) A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.”
Psalms 10:14 declares that God is “the helper of the fatherless.” And Psalms 10:17-18 says, “LORD, thou hast heard the desire of the humble: thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear: (18) To judge (literally, to vindicate) the fatherless and the oppressed, that the man of the earth may no more oppress.”
What is our responsibility when the Norma Jeane Mortensons of the world happen into our lives? James 1:27 makes it clear. “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
1https://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/marilyn-monroe-early-life.htm
2Ibid.
3https://worldhistoryedu.com/marilyn-monroe-birth-famous-films-achievements-death/
4https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/june-1/marilyn-monroe-born
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