63 Facts About Lenore Romney

1.

Lenore LaFount Romney was an American actress and political figure.

2.

Lenore Romney was the Republican Party nominee for the US Senate in 1970 from Michigan.

3.

Lenore Romney's younger son, Mitt Romney, is a US Senator from Utah, a former Governor of Massachusetts, and was the 2012 Republican presidential nominee.

4.

Lenore Romney went to Latter-day Saints High School, where she developed an interest in drama and first met George Romney.

5.

Lenore Romney attended the University of Utah and George Washington University, graduating from the latter in 1929.

6.

Lenore Romney was a popular First Lady of Michigan, and was a frequent speaker at events and before civic groups.

7.

Lenore Romney was involved with many charitable, volunteer, and cultural organizations, including high positions with the Muscular Dystrophy Association, YWCA, and American Field Services, and was active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which she was a life-long member.

8.

Lenore Romney was an asset to her husband's 1968 presidential campaign.

9.

Lenore Romney's difficulties continued in the general election, and she lost to Hart by a two-to-one margin.

10.

Lenore Romney returned to volunteer activities during the 1970s, including stints on the boards of the National Center for Voluntary Action and the National Conference of Christians and Jews, and gave speeches to various organizations.

11.

Lenore Romney LaFount was born on November 9,1908, in Logan, Utah, the second of four daughters of Alma Luella and Harold Arundel Lafount.

12.

Lenore Romney's father was born in Birmingham in England, and her mother, born in Montpelier, Idaho, was of colonial English ancestry.

13.

Lenore Romney had three sisters, one older and two younger.

14.

Lenore Romney's father worked as a headphone manufacturer while her mother was prominent in local charities.

15.

Lenore Romney was raised in Salt Lake City, in a house located at Fifteenth South and Ninth East.

16.

Lenore Romney played the ukulele and was a member of the LDS girls club The Seagulls.

17.

Lenore Romney attended Latter-day Saints High School, where she had a strong interest in drama.

18.

In 1924, during her junior year, she and senior George W Romney became high-school sweethearts.

19.

Lenore Romney was from a more assimilated Mormon family than his, which had struggled with financial failure and debt.

20.

Lenore Romney graduated from high school in 1926 after only three years and attended the University of Utah for two years, while George went to England and Scotland to serve as a Mormon missionary.

21.

Lenore Romney decided on the latter, despite strenuous arguments against doing so from a threatened George, who had been visiting her on weekends.

22.

Lenore Romney appeared in films that starred Jean Harlow and Ramon Navarro and was a stand-in for Lili Damita.

23.

Lenore Romney's trained voice made her valuable during this dawn of the talking pictures era, and she worked as a voice actor in animated cartoons, sometimes doing the parts of speaking cats and dogs.

24.

Lenore Romney appeared in a promotional film clip with Buster, MGM's star dog.

25.

Lenore Romney found the long waits between shots unsatisfying as a thespian, and read Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky novels on the set to pass the time.

26.

Lenore Romney finally convinced her to go ahead with marriage and return to Washington, where he worked for Alcoa as a lobbyist, earning $125 a month.

27.

The couple's first child, Margo Lynn was born in 1935 after a difficult childbirth, and Lenore Romney became a stay-at-home mother.

28.

In 1953, Lenore Romney suffered another health crisis when a blood transfusion of the wrong type put her life in danger, but she recovered.

29.

George was devoted to Lenore Romney, and tried to bring her a flower every day, often a single rose with a love note.

30.

George was a strong, blunt personality used to winning arguments by force of will, but the more self-controlled Lenore Romney was unintimidated and willing to push back against him.

31.

Lenore Romney was given the task of campaigning in the rural and small urban, Republican-leaning outstate areas while he focused on the Democratic-leaning Detroit area.

32.

Lenore Romney was a frequent speaker at events and before civic groups and became known for her eloquence.

33.

Lenore Romney was thus useful to his political career, just as she had been to his business one.

34.

Lenore Romney was re-elected in 1964 and 1966, and she campaigned frequently with him.

35.

Lenore Romney knew his policy positions at least as well as any of his official aides, went with him on almost all of his out-of-state trips, and gave his speeches for him if sudden events made him unable to attend.

36.

Lenore Romney was a devout and faithful member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who taught Sunday School lessons at her church for many years, including a stint during the early 1960s teaching 14-year-olds.

37.

Lenore Romney was adept at campaigning, appearing at ease and speaking in a lively, fluent manner without notes before audiences of various types.

38.

Lenore Romney continued to have health difficulties, visiting medical centers around the country but unable to get a clear diagnosis.

39.

Lenore Romney was found to have several food allergies and spent time at Chicago's Swedish Covenant Hospital in 1967.

40.

Lenore Romney suffered an injury outside her house around 1967 and another the next year when she fell and suffered a shoulder dislocation that turned into bursitis.

41.

Lenore Romney worked on behalf of many volunteer organizations over a number of years.

42.

Lenore Romney had held high positions with Goodwill Industries, United Community Services, Child Guidance Study, Association for Retarded Children, Michigan Association for Emotionally Disturbed Children, and the Michigan Historical Society.

43.

Lenore Romney was chair of the Detroit Grand Opera Association and was active with the Women's Association for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

44.

However, George came up with the idea of Lenore Romney running, and sprung it on Lenore Romney and the children at the end of 1969.

45.

Lenore Romney's name began being mentioned by other Republicans, even though she professed not to want to run unless no other candidate could be found.

46.

Lenore Romney was still photogenic, but so thin that she was sometimes described as "frail" or "waiflike", and her husband sometimes worried about her weight.

47.

Lenore Romney issued a half-hour campaign film that featured endorsements from many national and state party leaders as well as from celebrities Bob Hope and Art Linkletter, and showcased her family role and her concern for disadvantaged people.

48.

Lenore Romney was troubled by the ongoing Cambodian Incursion and said that if elected she would vote to cut off its funds if Nixon did not abide by his pledge to withdraw from there by the end of the month.

49.

Lenore Romney issued position papers and emphasized the themes of dealing with crime and social permissiveness; she advocated a national healthcare plan and increased attention to environmental damage caused by industry.

50.

Lenore Romney was negatively impacted, in both the primary and general election, by fallout from her husband's effort as HUD Secretary to enforce housing integration in Warren, Michigan.

51.

The Lenore Romney children campaigned for her, including Mitt, who took student leave to work as a driver and advance man at schools and county fairs during the summer.

52.

George, who had long been interested in volunteerism, had helped found the National Center for Voluntary Action in 1970, and Lenore Romney was made a member of its executive committee.

53.

Lenore Romney was a main force behind the Urban Service Corps, which sought to apply volunteer efforts to the problems of large cities.

54.

Lenore Romney worked with the National Women's Political Caucus to promote the electoral candidacies of women, and gave some speeches at colleges.

55.

Lenore Romney gave speeches to various local religious and civic organizations in the Midwest, focusing on her faith, the potential of "people power", and the role of women.

56.

At age 85, Lenore Romney emerged to give interviews during her son Mitt's 1994 campaign for the US Senate seat from Massachusetts.

57.

On July 26,1995, George Romney died of a heart attack at the age of 88 while he was exercising on his treadmill at the couple's home in Bloomfield Hills; he was discovered by Lenore, but it was too late to save him.

58.

Lenore Romney died several days later at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan, on July 7,1998.

59.

Lenore Romney is interred in Fairview Cemetery in Brighton, Michigan, in the same family plot as her husband.

60.

In 1969, Lenore Romney received the Woman of the Year Award from Brigham Young University.

61.

Lenore Romney was named one of the National Top Ten Women News Makers for 1970.

62.

Lenore Romney was given the Salvation Army's Humanitarian Award, Michigan State University's Distinguished Citizen Award, and received recognition from Hadassah and the International Platform Association.

63.

Lenore Romney received a Doctor of Humanities degree from Eastern Michigan University in 1968 and from Detroit College of Business in 1970.