Bachmann was born Michele Marie Amble in Waterloo, Iowa, to Norwegian-American parents David John Amble (1929–2003) and Arlene Jean Amble (née Johnson; born c. 1932). Two of her great-great-great-grandparents, Melchior and Martha Munson, emigrated from Sogndal, Norway, to Wisconsin in 1857. David was an engineer. Her family moved from Iowa to Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, when she was 13 years old. After her parents divorced when she was 14, David moved to California and remarried. Bachmann was raised by her mother, who worked at the First National Bank in Anoka, Minnesota, where they moved again. Three years later her mother married widower Raymond J. LaFave; the new marriage resulted in a family with nine children.