Oaks was injured in a car accident that threw him from the car when he was nine months old, which was reported in both the Provo and Vernal newspapers. When Oaks was two years old, his father moved the family from Provo to Twin Falls, Idaho where they would live until Oaks was eight. Oaks began his schooling at Washington School in Twin Falls. His father served as a member of the Twin Falls Stake's high council. Oaks was hospitalized twice with pneumonia while living in Twin Falls. In October 1939, when Oaks was 7 and his father was 37, Lloyd Oaks was hospitalized in Twin Falls with what was initially diagnosed as cancer. After 16 days he was transferred to a hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah where he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Lloyd Oaks was then transferred to the Bethesda Tuberculosis Sanitorium in Denver, Colorado where he remained for about seven months until he died.