As summarized in various stories, Lois was born to Sam and Ella Lane and grew up on their farm in the small town of Pittsdale. While Lois was a toddler, she encountered a rattlesnake in the woods near the Lane family farm. The snake was scared away by one of Kal-El's baby toys which had landed nearby in one of Jor-El's experimental rockets. At the age of two, Lois suffered measles, and at the age of three, whooping cough. At an unspecified time during Lois' childhood, her younger sister Lucy Lane was born.