 In high school, McKay had begun dating a classmate, Dilworth Jensen. They wrote to each other faithfully during Jensen's long absence on an LDS mission in Europe. In June 1935, both McKay and Jensen were accepted for graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and friends assumed they would marry. Her sister Flora McKay had recently eloped with Jensen's brother, whom the McKays disliked. They encouraged Fawn to attend the University of Chicago rather than marry. McKay seemed to have had "growing doubts about marrying" Jensen.
