Beginnings

John Whiteside Parsons was born to Ruth and Marvel Parsons on October 2, 1914, shortly after they arrived in Los Angeles.  Three months later, Ruth kicked Marvel out of the house due to his frequent visits to a prostitute.  She never let Marvel see his son again despite his many pleading, apologetic letters.

Soon after the split, Ruth's wealthy parents moved out to California and bought an Italian-style villa for themselves and their daughter and grandson at 537 Orange Grove Avenue in Pasadena.  Parsons spent his childhood on the famously beautiful residential street, surrounded by wealth and pampered by servants.  The Arroyo Seco was his playground.

A solitary child, Parsons loved Aurthurian legends and tales of Greek and Norse mythology.  After reading Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon, he began to dream of going to the moon.  This dream led him to reading pulp magazines featuring space travel and science fiction.

In Junior High, Parsons befriended a tough kid named Edward Forman after Forman defended him from bullies.  Parsons infected Forman with his passion for space travel and the two drove each other to create ever more complex skyrockets.

By the time Parsons entered high school, he still had few other friends, preferring fencing and archery to the more popular sports at John Muir High School such as basketball and football.  His reputation was helped, however, after he was sent to and then expelled from a military school.  He also became notably handsome in his later teenage years.

In the late 20s and 30s, although rocket science was ridiculed by the popular media and the academic community, rocket societies began to flourish.  In 1930, eleven people, including nine science fiction writers and editors and one woman, formed the American Interplanetary Society (AIS).  They were disappointed in their inability to attract engineers and scientists to their cause, but Parsons and Forman joined immediately.

The Great Wall Street Crash of 1929 wiped out most of Parson's grandparents' fortune.  The stress negatively impacted his grandfather's health, killing him within two years.  By 1932, the dire state of his family's finances spurred Parsons to take a part-time job at the Hercules Powder Company in Los Angeles.  The job greatly expanded his knowledge of explosives.

Hoping to study chemistry and physics, Parsons enrolled in Pasadena Junior College in 1933, but he had to drop out due to finances.  Instead he took a job at the Hercules main explosives manufacturing plant in Pinole, on the eastern side of San Francisco Bay.  The plant was isolated and desolate and the work was dangerous and exhausting.  Despite these facts and the nitroglycerine-induced migraines, Parsons was happy at the job.

Eventually Parsons was offered a spot at nearby Stanford University, but he was dismayed to discover that his savings from Hercules could not possibly cover the cost.  He decided to return to Pasadena.