Berniece Baker Miracle

**Berniece Inez Gladys Miracle** (née **Baker**; July 30, 1919 – May 25, 2014) was an American writer, known for her memoir *My Sister Marilyn* (1994) about her half-sister, actress Marilyn Monroe.

## Berniece Baker Miracle

### Relatives

**Parents:** Gladys Pearl Baker and Jasper Baker
**Step-father:** Charles Stanley Gifford
**Brother:** Robert Baker
**Half-siblings:** Marilyn Monroe, Doris Elizabeth, and Charles Stanley Jr.
**Husband:** Paris Miracle
**Daughter:** Mona Rae Miracle
**Brothers-in-law:** Arthur Miller, Joe DiMaggio, and James Dougherty,
**Grandparents:** Della Mae Monroe, and Otis Elmer Monroe,

## Biography

Berniece Baker was born in Venice, California on July 30, 1919. Her parents, Gladys Pearl Monroe and Jasper Newton "Jap" Baker (1886–1951), were married in 1917. Following their divorce in 1921, Jasper kidnapped Berniece and her brother, Robert Kermit, and raised them in his native Kentucky. Gladys soon remarried and gave birth to a third child, Norma Jean Baker.

In 1933, Robert Baker died from kidney failure. Two years later, Berniece Baker began attending Pineville High School. She married Paris Miracle (1918–1990) in 1938. Their only child, Mona Rae Miracle, was born on July 18, 1939, twelve days before Miracle's 20th birthday.[*citation needed*] Mona is married to William Joseph Booth.

During the pregnancy, Miracle received a letter from her mother, informing her that she had a sister, Norma Jean. The half-sisters met in 1944 after exchanging letters and pictures. At the same time, Norma Jean began a modeling career and became an actress under the stage name Marilyn Monroe. She remained in contact with her sister, who visited her in 1961 in her New York home after Monroe had divorced her third husband, Arthur Miller, and had undergone surgery for her cholecystectomy.

Monroe died a year later and left Miracle $10,000 in her final will. Along with Monroe's second husband, Joe DiMaggio, and her business manager, Inez Melson, Miracle arranged the funeral, choosing the casket and dress. In an interview with *ina.fr*, she stated:

> "I don't think she committed suicide. It could have been an accident, because I had just talked to her a short time before. She told me what she had planned to do, she had just bought a new house and she was working on the curtains of the windows. She had so many things to look forward to and she was so happy."
>
>

Throughout her life, Miracle avoided the media and worked as a manufacturing inspector, bookkeeper and costume designer.[*citation needed*] Miracle died in Asheville, North Carolina, on May 25, 2014, at the age of 94.[*citation needed*]

## *My Sister Marilyn*

*My Sister Marilyn: A Memoir of Marilyn Monroe* was published on June 1, 1994 (on Monroe's birthday and 50 years after the half-sisters first met). Miracle co-authored the book with her daughter Mona; it tells the story of her rare meet-ups with Monroe, up until the latter's death.[*citation needed*]

It also addresses the mental issues of their mother, Gladys, and the sisters' consequently troubling childhoods, both lacking a mother figure:

> We share the same mother, who early in our lives was diagnosed as mentally ill. We grew up feeling abandoned and, though both of us were told we were pretty and talented, we still needed courage and strength. We got that from each other.
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The memoir features exclusive photographs and received positive reviews by outlets such as *Entertainment Weekly*, which wrote that "this portrait of Marilyn is irreplaceable." It remains the only authorized biography of Monroe's family.

## References

1. ↑ [[1]]
2. ↑ Taraborrelli, J. Randy (2009). *The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe*. Grand Central Publishing. ISBN 978-0-446-55095-6.

3. ↑ Geiger, Ruth-Esther (1995). *Marilyn Monroe* (in German). Rowohlt. ISBN 978-3-499-50507-2.
4. ↑ Leaming, Barbara (2010). *Marilyn Monroe: A Biography*. Crown. ISBN 978-0-307-55777-3.
5. ↑ Lyons, Beverley (2015-02-25). "Scots stage star gets approval from Marilyn Monroe's niece to play the icon". *Daily Record*. Retrieved 2020-11-20.
6. ↑ "Mona Rae Miracle - Ancestry.com". *www.ancestry.com*. Retrieved 2023-06-25.
7. ↑ Ott, Tim (9 September 2020). "How Marilyn Monroe's Childhood Was Disrupted by Her Mother's Paranoid Schizophrenia". *Biography*. Retrieved 2020-11-20.