Born Shirley Hardie Jackson in San Francisco in 1916 to Leslie and Geraldine Jackson, Shirley and her family lived in Burlingame, California, an wealthy middle-class suburb. Shirley spent most of her early life in California. The Jackson family then moved to Rochester, New York, where Shirley attended Brighton High School and graduated in 1934. For college, she first attended the University of Rochester before graduating from Syracuse University in 1940. 