The daughter of Harry Clay Pendleton (1874-1961), a building contractor, and Nettie (née Coward) Pendleton (1898-1964), she was raised in Piedmont, California, attending both grammar school and high school there, graduating from the Mary Wallace School, a private Piedmont high school for girls, in June 1947.
After high school, she attended the University of California, Berkeley for two years (Oakland Tribune, September 8, 1954, "Braggs Leave Foreign L A Home"), but did not graduate (Cal-Berkeley Alumni database), although in an interview with Marilyn McMahon, staff writer, published in the Santa Barbara News-Press on March 8, 2011, Bragg claimed she graduated from that institution with a "bachelor"s degree in biochemistry".
Oakland Tribune, June 7, 1947, "Gala Occasion Foreign Young Secretariat") Her parents had divorced on October 1, 1938 (Alameda County, California Action Number 135796) after a separation of several years. (State of California Certificate of Death ?-0860ll). They later divorced in 1957 in Los Angeles County, California.
