Today’s highlight is a very special artifact from the collection: Marilyn Monroe’s personal photograph of her Aunt Ana Lower. Ana was the paternal aunt of Grace Goddard, who was Marilyn’s legal guardian and foster mother when she was a young child. Marilyn was so close to Ana that she called her “Aunt Ana,” which is written on the back of this photograph in Marilyn’s own handwriting (photo #2). Photo #3 shows a young Norma Jeane with her Aunt Ana, circa 1939. Ana is credited with gifting a young Norma Jeane her very first camera, which was a Brownie Target 620. That camera is also part of the Marilyn Monroe Collection today (photo #4). Ana was born in 1880, and passed away in 1948. She is buried in the same cemetery as Marilyn, Westwood Village Memorial Park (photo #5). One of the reasons’s Westwood was selected as Marilyn’s final resting place is because some of her childhood foster family members had been laid to rest there. Grace Goddard is buried at Westwood as well (photo #6). #marilynmonroe