Ann Lane was born in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, to Peter C. Lane and Bertha James Lane on 12 October 1908. She was the youngest of three children, the oldest child having died at age two. The Lanes lived a rather comfortable and stable life. The family, early on, had established a tradition in the sciences, with specific concentration in chemistry, that was to extend for three generations. Her father, a native of New Germantown, New Jersey, was a pharmacist who had been apprenticed to a druggist and licensed in 1890. He owned a drugstore in Old Saybrook. Her aunt and uncle were also druggists, owning a drugstore in the neighboring town of Old Lyme, Connecticut. Equally accomplished in her own right, her mother, a native of Hartford, Connecticut, graduated from the New York School of Chiropody and was licensed to practice her profession in 1915. The Lanes were one of two black families in the small New England town, a fact which helped to shape Ann's perspective and provided her with raw materials for later stories and novels.
In 1925 Ann Lane, the only person of Afro-American descent in her class, graduated from Old Saybrook High School.
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