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Neither was willing to care for their children, so they sent their daughters alone on a 3-day train trip from Chicago to Alhambra in California to live with their paternal grandparents.
兩人都不愿撫養小孩，于是讓女兒們自己搭三天的火車從芝加哥到阿爾漢布拉和祖父母同住。
My mother's grandfather, Edwin Sr., a former British sailor, left the girls to his wife, Emma, a severe woman who wore black Victorian dresses and resented and ignored my mother except when enforcing her rigid house rules.
母親的爺爺老埃德溫當過英國船員，把養育母親的責任全交給妻子艾瑪。艾瑪很嚴厲，長年穿著黑色維多利亞式服裝，對母親不理不睬，充滿怨氣，惟有貫徹一絲不茍的家規時，才會正視母親。
My mother found some relief from the oppressive conditions of Emma's house in the outdoors. She ran through the orange groves that stretched for miles in the San Gabriel Valley, losing herself in the scent of fruit ripening in the sun. At night, she would escaped into her books.
到了戶外，擺脫艾瑪家里令人窒息的氣氛，母親才感到一絲輕松。她徜徉在圣加布里埃爾山谷數英里長的橘子園里，陶醉于陽光下成熟的果實散發出的果香。夜里她就躲到書堆里。
She left home during her first year in the high school to work as a mother's helper, caring for two young children in return for room, board and three dollars a week. For the first time, she lived in a household where the father and mother gave their children the love, attention and guidance she had never received. My mother often told me that without that sojourn with a strong family, she would not have known how to care for her own home and children.
高一時，她離開奶奶家，找了一份保姆的工作，幫忙照顧兩個小孩，主人提供食宿，每周付給她三美元。但這是她生平第一次住在被愛包圍的家庭里，看到父母如何關愛、教導孩子，這些都是她未曾享受過的。母親常說，如果沒有這一段插曲，她都不知道如何照顧自己的家庭與小孩。
When she graduated from high school, my mother made plans to go to college in California. But her mother Della contacted her—for the first time in ten years—and asked her to come live with her in Chicago. When my mother arrived in Chicago, she found that Della wanted her only as a housekeeper. Once I asked my mother why she went back to Chicago, she told me, “I'd hoped so hard that my mother would love me that I had to take the chance and find out.”
中學畢業時，母親打算在加州上大學，不過外婆黛拉主動和她聯絡——多年來頭一遭——要母親搬到芝加哥和她同住。母親到了芝加哥才發現，黛拉要的不過是個管家。我曾問母親為何回芝加哥。“我非常希望得到母愛，我得抓住機會去試試。”她說。
