Mr. and Mrs. Mount

Mr. and Mrs. Mount are a Pasadena couple who apply to adopt Norma Jeane Baker, offering her a glimpse of family life beyond institutional care. Their home, affection, and Sunday outings make them a credible source of hope; Gladys Mortensen’s refusal prevents that hope from becoming a new home.

Identity and Background

Mr. Mount is a lawyer in Pasadena, and Mrs. Mount has an enormous garden, especially full of roses. Their house is large enough to have a pond. The details distinguish their home from the crowded children’s institution where Norma Jeane lives and give the prospect of adoption a specific, appealing shape: a garden, a family house, and adults who make room for her in their ordinary life.

Their Offer to Norma Jeane

The couple take Norma Jeane on outings on some Sundays and once show her the house where they live. They have applied to make her their daughter and have her come live with them. Norma Jeane hopes Gladys will agree, and the letter she writes to her mother makes clear how strongly she wants the adoption. The Mounts are therefore not merely prospective guardians in the background; their offer becomes a future Norma Jeane actively imagines and asks to enter.

Gladys’s Refusal

Gladys’s reply rejects the adoption emphatically. She insists that she is Norma Jeane’s living mother, expects to recover, and intends to bring her daughter home; she also threatens to take legal action rather than allow the adoption. The Mounts’ willingness to adopt Norma Jeane cannot overcome the requirement that Gladys consent. Their offer remains contingent on the decision of a mother who is not ready to release her claim.

Narrative Role

Edith Mittelstadt describes the Mounts as respectable people, good Christians though not Christian Scientists, who care deeply for Norma Jeane. That endorsement makes the rejection more painful: the proposed home is presented as loving and suitable, not as an obvious danger or a merely bureaucratic arrangement. Yet the Mounts remain a possibility rather than a lasting presence in Norma Jeane’s life. Their brief appearance concentrates the gap between the family she hopes to join and the mother whose refusal keeps her waiting.