Born on November 12, 1929, Grace Kelly spent the 1930s growing up in an affluent, fiercely competitive, and tightly knit Irish-German Catholic family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While much of the United States struggled through the Great Depression, Grace’s childhood was insulated by wealth, athletic prestige, and strict discipline.
Grace lived in a sprawling, three-story brick Colonial home at 3901 Henry Avenue in Philadelphia’s East Falls neighborhood, built by her father in 1929. Summers were spent at the family’s beach house in Ocean City, New Jersey. Her father, John B. “Jack” Kelly Sr., was a self-made brickwork millionaire and a three-time Olympic gold medalist in rowing. Her mother, Margaret Majer, was the first woman to coach women’s athletics at the University of Pennsylvania. Together, they ran a structured household that prized physical fitness, punctuality, and winning.
Grace was the third of four children, sandwiched between older siblings Margaret (“Peggy”) and John Jr. (“Kell”), and younger sister Elizabeth (“Lizanne”). Because her father heavily favored her athletic older brother and outgoing older sister, Grace was often viewed as the quiet, fragile, and overlooked sibling. Unlike her robust, sports-obsessed siblings, young Grace suffered from frequent colds, sinus infections, and asthma. She was also severely nearsighted, though she hated wearing her glasses. Because she was often kept indoors, she retreated into books, daydreaming, and dressing up.
She began her education at St. Bridget’s Parish school (where she was also baptized) before transferring to Ravenhill Academy, a private Catholic girls’ school overseen by the Sisters of the Assumption. There, she learned poise, etiquette, and began participating in school plays and charity fashion shows. Despite her father’s dismissive attitude toward show business, theatrical talent ran deep in the family. Her uncle Walter C. Kelly was a well-known vaudeville star, and her uncle George Kelly was a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and director.
By the end of the 1930s, Grace was already writing short plays, staging puppet shows at home, and gravitating toward the local East Falls theater group, the Old Academy Players, where she would make her stage debut at age twelve. Here’s a collection of 30 rarely seen photos of Grace Kelly when she was a child in the 1930s.
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