Verena Fankhauser left Switzerland in 1954, and arrived in New York City in early April.

She bought a car, and began to travel West, taking the Northern route. She visited her friend in Nova Scotia, then traveled through Illinois, both Dakotas and Lake Tahoe before landing in San Francisco.

There, she contemplated establishing a business for herself, but decided against it and continued traveling South, eventually deciding to stay in Los Angeles and enrolling at UCLA as an international art student.

There, she enjoyed the night life in Hollywood, and eventually met her husband to be, an engineer named Sidney Castle. At the time, Sidney had just opened his own business as a structural engineer, and he had impeccable credentials as such, having worked in the same capacity for Kaiser and Standard Oil.

The Castles got married in 1956, at the Hollywood Presbyterian Church, and settled down on Wilton Place in a small apartment close to the studios. Around this time, Sidney Castle discovered that business was harder than it looked, and became despondent because he had to lay off his employees. This affected the marriage and the couple eventually became separated, then divorced.

Just as the divorce proceedings began, Verena discovered that she would have a child. Her ex husband was quite broke by now, and couldn't contribute to the family anymore, so Verena ended up raising the child by herself. At first, living just across from the DesiLu Studios, Verena was able to find work as a fashion designer, she became quite popular and her designs catered to the red carpet crowd. But she quickly found the demands of Hollywood too intensive, and looked for another way to support herself and her child.

Eventually, Verena decided to take her son to Switzerland, when he was about 5 years old, to meet his family. They stayed in Switzerland for a whole year, and by the time they got back the boy had forgotten how to speak English.