Lois Lenore Lenski was born on October 14, 1893, in Springfield, Ohio, the daughter of a Lutheran minister and a former schoolteacher. She grew up in a small town in Ohio, the fourth of five children in a family that placed a high value on education and religion. After graduating from Ohio State University with a teacher's degree, she pursued a career in art. For four years she studied at the Art Students League in New York, working odd jobs to pay living expenses.

She painted greeting cards, made fashion drawings for ads, clerked at a gift shop, and worked for one of her teachers, Arthur Covey, helping him with mural paintings. During this time in New York, she sold illustrations for four softcover children's coloring books.

The following year she studied at the Westminster School of Art in London, and it was at this time...