Lenore LaFount was born on November 9, 1908, in Logan, Utah, the second of four daughters of Alma Luella (née Robison; 1882–1938) and Harold Arundel Lafount (1880–1952). Her father was born in Birmingham in England, and her mother, born in Montpelier, Idaho, was of colonial English ancestry (with more distant French roots). She had three sisters, one older and two younger. The family belonged to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; her father had converted to it in England and then came to the U.S., while her maternal grandmother, Rosetta Berry, had been one of the Mormon handcart pioneers. Her father worked as a headphone manufacturer while her mother was prominent in local charities.