Going to school during the Depression was a good experience for Fernea. Because teaching jobs were hard to come by in America, her local school was staffed with great teachers who moved to Canada instead. However, when World War II broke out, her family moved to Portland, Oregon. Upon her arrival to school in America, she was bored with the curriculum and found it far less challenging than in Canada. After high school she obtained her degree in English from Reed College in Portland. Her postgraduate work was done at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts as well as at the University of Chicago. She met Robert Fernea at Reed College and married him in 1956.