Lenore was raised in Salt Lake City, in a house located at Fifteenth South and Ninth East. She played the ukulele and was a member of the LDS girls club The Seagulls. She attended Latter-day Saints High School, where she had a strong interest in drama. In 1924, during her junior year, she and senior George W. Romney became high-school sweethearts. She was from a more assimilated Mormon family than his, which had struggled with financial failure and debt. Although she was a "reach" for him in terms of social standing, he pursued her relentlessly from that point on, studying at a nearby junior college while she was a senior.