Shortly before graduating from Hume-Fogg High, Page had met William E. "Billy" Neal, a former rival high school sports star two years older than she. In September 1942, he was drafted into the Army for World War II, and he and Page married on February 18, 1943, before he shipped out. For the next few years, she moved from San Francisco to Nashville to Miami and to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where she felt a special affinity with the country, its people and its culture. She and Neal divorced in 1947.