Marilyn Monroe grew up believing she was essentially alone. What she did not know for much of her childhood was that somewhere across the country, she had an older sister and had once had an older brother. Years before Norma Jeane was born, her mother, Gladys, had been married to Jasper Baker. They had two children, Robert Kermit, known as Jackie, and Berniece. When the marriage collapsed, Gladys eventually obtained custody, but Jasper took the children to Kentucky and raised them there, separating them from their mother. Norma Jeane was born in Los Angeles in 1926. She never knew her father and spent much of her childhood moving through foster homes and an orphanage while Gladys struggled with severe psychiatric illness. Then came another devastating discovery. When Norma Jeane was seven, Gladys learned that 13-year-old Jackie had died from kidney disease. Marilyn would therefore never meet the brother she hadn't even known she had. But Berniece was still alive. As a teenager, Norma Jeane finally learned about her sister and began writing to her in Kentucky. For a girl who had spent years feeling unwanted and shuffled between homes, discovering that she had a sister was enormous. In 1944, when Norma Jeane was 18, the two finally met. Berniece later remembered watching for her at a train station and immediately recognizing her. Their lives could hardly have looked more different. Berniece had grown up in Kentucky. Norma Jeane was beginning the transformation that would eventually make her Marilyn Monroe. Yet their connection endured. Berniece remained part of Marilyn's life as fame swallowed nearly everything around her. After Marilyn died in 1962, Berniece helped arrange her funeral and later defended the sister behind the legend. Before Marilyn Monroe became one of the most photographed women on earth, she was a lonely teenage girl discovering something she had desperately wanted all her life. She had a sister.