Grinnell is the Iowa town in which Maribeth Robertson turns a forced separation from home into a precarious but self-directed life, and where her friendship with Tommy Whittaker leads to the Whittaker family. Its small-town institutions and personal connections make it more than a place to stay: it gives Maribeth a job, a room, access to medical care, a way to continue her education, and ultimately a family willing to adopt her baby and help her return to school.

Setting and Arrival

Grinnell first appears as the hometown from which Maribeth is cut off. At sixteen, pregnant and sent away by her father, Bert Robertson, she leaves the Sisters of Charity convent at dawn with her money and a small bag. She takes an open-ended bus ticket to Chicago, changing her location because she cannot return home and wants somewhere to live until the birth. In the town she leaves behind, she has no friends she expects to miss apart from her mother and sister, Noelle Robertson; she sends them postcards promising to give them an address when she has one.

Her journey instead brings her to Grinnell, where a waitress named Julie offers her a place to stay while she looks for a room and a job at Jimmy D's. By noon the following day, Maribeth has found a small, reasonably priced room in a house: it is decorated in pink chintz, receives abundant sunlight, and lies six blocks from the restaurant. After the isolation of the convent and her abrupt expulsion from family life, the room gives her an immediate, tangible foothold. She feels at home in the town within hours of arriving.

Work and Everyday Independence

Jimmy D's anchors Maribeth’s daily life in Grinnell. She starts work as a waitress soon after finding her room, wearing a uniform supplied by another waitress, and the people at the restaurant treat her with friendliness and respect. She lets them believe she is a widow rather than disclose that she is unmarried and pregnant. That cover gives her a way to participate in the community while keeping her situation private, even as she continues to think about Paul Browne and the child she expects to give up.

The restaurant also becomes a place where practical kindness gathers around her. Julie and the other workers understand that Maribeth is moving on, though they do not know the full truth about her pregnancy or plans. On her last day, they hold a small baby shower. The gifts include knitted booties and a sweater, a blanket decorated with ducks, a teddy bear, toys, diapers, and a high chair that Jimmy buys. Their generosity, offered without knowledge of the adoption plan, makes the future child suddenly real to Maribeth and forces her to confront what relinquishing the baby will mean.

A College Town and a Network of Care

Grinnell’s identity as a college town shapes the possibilities available to Maribeth. Julie describes local students and college employees as part of the clientele at Jimmy D's and expects them to welcome her. After Tommy’s school year begins, he and Maribeth make their companionship into a study routine. They meet after his classes and her work; sometimes he studies at her home or in a back corner of the restaurant while she brings him food. They share assignments and school subjects, and Tommy arranges to copy the curriculum and lend her his books so she can keep up with the work she is missing.

This arrangement makes education a concrete form of independence rather than a distant ambition. Maribeth completes the same assignments as Tommy and saves her papers, maintaining her studies while earning money at Jimmy D's. He recognizes that she is an exceptionally strong student, and they discuss the possibility that she could take an examination when she returns to Iowa and avoid losing the school term. Grinnell gives her a temporary place in which work, study, and a future beyond pregnancy can coexist.

Medical care is another part of the town’s support network. Tommy secretly finds the name and address of his mother’s obstetrician, Avery MacLean, who has cared for Elizabeth Whittaker and delivered her children. He makes an appointment for Maribeth under the name Mrs. Robertson, pretending that he is her husband, because he knows she needs a doctor. MacLean’s care makes the pregnancy and birth more immediate, but it also provides informed guidance while Maribeth remains a sixteen-year-old without her family’s support.

The Whittaker Home and Adoption

Tommy’s friendship brings Maribeth from the restaurant and her rented room into the Whittaker household. When she is nearly seven months pregnant, he takes her to meet his parents, Elizabeth and John Whittaker. The meeting is deliberately courteous: they welcome her into their home, offer her a drink, and include her at dinner. John proposes that she might attend the local college, while Elizabeth offers to help with an application if Maribeth wants to pursue that path. Their response expands the town’s role from temporary refuge to a possible home and future.

The birth and adoption transform those possibilities into a family arrangement. After Maribeth gives birth to Kate, the Whittakers prepare their home, repainting Annie Whittaker’s old bassinet and dressing it with pink gauze and ribbons. Three days after the birth, Maribeth signs the adoption papers with a shaking hand and waives the waiting period. She asks that the baby not be brought to her that day because she needs time to mourn. When they later leave the hospital together, Elizabeth carries Kate to the car and John takes pictures. At home, Elizabeth responds when the baby cries, while Maribeth tries not to go to her, consciously establishing the boundary between the child’s birth mother and adoptive mother.

The arrangement also carries a question of identity and disclosure. Maribeth, Elizabeth, and John agree that Kate will be told that Maribeth is their friend, not her biological mother; they may tell her the truth when she is grown if she needs to know. The adoption gives Kate a home with the Whittakers, but it depends on an agreed account that conceals the biological relationship for the time being. Grinnell thus holds both the intimacy of the new family and the absence built into its chosen story.

Departure and Lasting Significance

Grinnell is not Maribeth’s final destination. The Whittakers plan for her to return to her family, finish school in the spring, and then choose where to go to college. John and Elizabeth offer her the money they had set aside for Annie’s education, making it possible for her to pursue college in Grinnell or elsewhere. Their practical support changes the meaning of her departure: she is not simply being sent away again, but given room to decide what her life will become.

Maribeth still hates the thought of going home, and Tommy promises to visit as often as he can. Their separation is difficult, but the town has connected her with people and opportunities that extend beyond her temporary stay. Grinnell’s significance lies in this combination of provisional shelter and durable ties: it is where Maribeth works, keeps learning, receives care, gives Kate to the Whittakers, and leaves with the possibility of education and a future of her own.