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.
两人都不愿抚养小孩，于是让女儿们自己搭三天的火车从芝加哥到阿尔汉布拉和祖父母同住。
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.
母亲的爷爷老埃德温当过英国船员，把养育母亲的责任全交给妻子艾玛。艾玛很严厉，长年穿着黑色维多利亚式服装，对母亲不理不睬，充满怨气，惟有贯彻一丝不苟的家规时，才会正视母亲。

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.
到了户外，摆脱艾玛家里令人窒息的气氛，母亲才感到一丝轻松。她徜徉在圣加布里埃尔山谷数英里长的橘子园里，陶醉于阳光下成熟的果实散发出的果香。夜里她就躲到书堆里。
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.
高一时，她离开奶奶家，找了一份保姆的工作，帮忙照顾两个小孩，主人提供食宿，每周付给她三美元。但这是她生平第一次住在被爱包围的家庭里，看到父母如何关爱、教导孩子，这些都是她未曾享受过的。母亲常说，如果没有这一段插曲，她都不知道如何照顾自己的家庭与小孩。
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.”
中学毕业时，母亲打算在加州上大学，不过外婆黛拉主动和她联络——多年来头一遭——要母亲搬到芝加哥和她同住。母亲到了芝加哥才发现，黛拉要的不过是个管家。我曾问母亲为何回芝加哥。“我非常希望得到母爱，我得抓住机会去试试。”她说。