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She was born Lenore LaFount on November 9, 1908, in Logan, Utah, the second of four children all daughters, of Harold Lafount and the former Alma Luella Robison. Her father was born in Birmingham in England, and her mother, born in Montpelier, Idaho. The family were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Her father had converted to Mormonism in England before coming to the U.S., while her maternal grandmother, Rosetta Berry, had been a Mormon pioneer. Lenore was raised in Salt Lake City, and was a member of the LDS girls club called The Seagulls. She attended Latter-day Saints High School and was active in the drama club. In 1924, while in high school, she met her high school sweetheart and future husband George Romney. She graduated from high school in 1926 after only three years and attended the University of Utah for two years. During the same time, George Romney went to England and Scotland to serve as a Mormon missionary. Before leaving, he made her a "promise never to kiss anybody" while he was away. In 1927, she was one of a group of six young women chosen to welcome Charles Lindbergh to Salt Lake City following his historic Spirit of St. Louis flight.
Later in 1927, her father was appointed by President Calvin Coolidge to serve on the new Federal Radio Commission and the family moved to Washington, D.C., where Lenore transferred to George Washington University. She graduated from that school with an A.B. degree in English literature in June 1929. When George Romney returned from his missionary duties, he followed her to Washington.
With encouragement from her mother and from an aunt, Lenore LaFount moved to New York and enrolled in the American Laboratory Theatre to study acting, where she was studied the Stanislavski system. She starred in her college's productions of Hamlet (as Ophelia) and The Merchant of Venice (as Portia) and also appeared in roles from Ibsen and Chekhov plays. She received a performance award in 1930. She subsequently received an offer from NBC to perform in a series of Shakespeare radio programs and from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to go to Hollywood under an apprentice actress contract. She chose the latter. Ever the devoted boyfriend, George Romney had been working with Alcoa and arranged to be transferred to Los Angeles to be with her. In September 1930, they became engaged. While in Hollywood, she acted in bit parts, including a role as a fashionable young French woman in a Greta Garbo film and as an ingenue in the William Haines film A Tailor Made Man. She also appeared in films starring Jean Harlow. It was now the era of talking pictures and her trained voice as well as her looks made her a marketable commodity. She also worked as a voice actor in animated cartoons. She met stars like Clark Gable, causing jealousy on the part of her fiancée. In response, she threatened to end their engagement.
She was offered a three-year contract with MGM for $50,000, but was put off by some of the less wholesome aspects of Hollywood, including the studio's request that she pose for cheesecake photos. George Romney was ale to convince her proceed with their marriage and the couple return to Washington, where he worked for Alcoa as a lobbyist. Lenore later said that she "never had any regrets about giving up movies." The couple were married on July 2, 1931, at the Salt Lake Temple.
In Washington, Lenore's father's social and political connections were beneficial ad the couple met Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt and other prominent Washington figures. During 1933–1934, Lenore hosted a 15-minute weekly radio program entitled Poetical Hitchhiking, where she selected and read poems. She also directed student plays at George Washington University.
The couple had their first child, Margo Lynn in 1935 after a difficult childbirth. Their second daughter, Jane was born in 1938. The following year the family moved to the Detroit, when George took a job with the Automobile Manufacturers Association.[32] They rented a house in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, for two years, then bought one in the Palmer Woods section of Detroit. Their first son, George Scott was born in 1941. Mitt Romney (whose full name is Willard Mitt Romney) was born in 1947. Lenore would subsequently refer to Mitt as her miracle baby.
The family moved to Bloomfield Hills, Michigan in 1953. That year Lenore almost died when she received a blood transfusion of the wrong blood type. In 1954, George Romney was named president and chairman of American Motors Corporation. Lenore suffered a bad attack of bursitis, which left her with no movement in her left arm for five years. She had further health issues including a slipped disk in her back.
George Romney ran for Governor of Michigan in 1962, and Lenore Romney played a prominent role in the campaign, making speeches before women's groups and campaigning in the rural areas. Her husband won the election in November 1962, and Lenore became the state's First Lady. She was a popular First Lady and spoke frequently at events and before civic groups. Her husband was re-elected as Governor in in 1964 and 1966, and she was very active in both campaigns. She spoke on his behalf and some members of the media were convinced that she was smarter than he was.
Lenore was a traditionalist who rejected the women's liberation movement and was also critical of the "New Morality" of the era, calling it a "barnyard morality." Vut she did advocate for the involvement of women in business and politics. She was quoted as saying, "Why should women have any less say than men about the great decisions facing our nation?"
Lenore Romney was a devout member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She taught Sunday School lessons at her church. Her views on many social issues were more liberal than most of the Republican Party, and she appeared on stage with Martin Luther King Jr. at Michigan State University on March 9, 1966. She was a member of the Women's City Club in Detroit, but in 1967, threatened to resign unless the club dropped a policy barring African-American guests from eating in its dining room.
In 1968 George Romney ran for the Republican nomination for President. An Associated Press reporter described her as "the most indefatigable campaigner on the New Hampshire primary circuit, including the candidates". Her husband was not as successful. He fell behind Republican rival Richard Nixon in polls and withdrew from the race in February 1968.
Lenore Romney continued to experience a series of health difficulties, but was unable to get a clear diagnosis. During October 1968 she was hospitalized at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, and was treated by a bone and mineral specialist.
Throughout this time Lenore Romney worked on behalf of a number of charitable organizations. In 1963, she was co-chair of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. By 1970, she was on the national board of directors of the YWCA and a member of the national advisory board to American Field Services. She had also held volunteer positions with Goodwill Industries, United Community Services, Child Guidance Study, Michigan Association for Emotionally Disturbed Children, and the Michigan Historical Society. She worked with Project HOPE and was the chair of the Detroit Grand Opera Association.
After the 1968 presidential election, George Romney was named the U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the administration of President Richard Nixon. In 1970 Republicans were looking for a strong candidate to challenge incumbent Democractic US Senator Philip Hart, a two-term incumbent. Hart was heavily favored to win re-election, but Republicans thought he might be vulnerable because of a number of issues including his wife's arrest for being part of an anti-war protest. President Nixon had hoped that George Romney would run for the seat because the two had disagreed on a number of policy issues and Nixon wanted to avoid firing Romney. George Romney came up with the idea of having his wife run for the seat instead. Gerald Ford from Michigan, who was then the US House Minority leader, thought that Lenore Romney could unite the state party's different factions, but Governor William Milliken opposed her candidacy. On February 23, she formally entered the contest for the Republican nomination for the Senate seat. Milliken was pressured to endorse her candidacy. She received endorsements from many national and state party leaders as well as from celebrities like Bob Hope and Art Linkletter. Lenore Romney opposed continuing US involvement in the Vietnam War, and called for the withdrawal of all American troops by the end of 1971. She was troubled by US incursion into Cambodia and said that if elected she would vote to cut off its funds if President Nixon did not abide by his pledge to withdraw from there by the end of the month. In the August 4, 1970, primary, Lenore Romney won a narrow victory, with 52 percent of the vote.
In the general election, with a divided party, and with her campaign resources greatly reduced by the primary fight, Romney trailed incumbent Hart from the start. She campaigned for a national healthcare plan and increased attention to environmental damage caused by industry. She never made any personal attacks against Hart. She was the only woman running for the U.S. Senate that year and she campaigned across the state in a chartered Cessna, making as many as twelve stops a day. She also was negatively impacted by criticism of her husband's effort as HUD Secretary to enforce housing integration in Michigan. Being far ahead in polls, Hart kept his head down. Lenore and her son Mitt visited all 83 Michigan counties while her husband remained in Washington most of the time and did not publicly campaign for her. In the November 3, 1970, general election, Hart won a third term with 67 percent of the vote to her 33 percent. Lenore Romney made an election-night visit to congratulate Hart in person, making what Hart called "the most graceful and really moving concession speech I've ever heard."
Lenore Romney was left disillusioned by the fact that many people closed their minds to her candidacy because of her gender. She later wrote, "In factories, I encountered men in small groups, laughing, shouting, 'Get in the kitchen. George needs you there. What do you know about politics?'" She told one of her children that she wished she had not run, and concluded that "It's the most humiliating thing I know of to run for office."
Following the campaign, Lenore Romney returned to Washington. George Romney had helped to found the National Center for Voluntary Action in 1970, and Lenore was made a member of its executive committee. She was on the board of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, serving as brotherhood chair during 1970–1971 and as vice chair in 1972. She worked with the National Women's Political Caucus to promote the electoral candidacies of women.
George Romney left the administration and politics in January 1973, and Lenore continued as vice president of the National Center for Voluntary Action. In 1974, she became a commentator on the WJR radio show Point of View. Subsequently, she removed herself from the public eye, but continued to speak to various local religious and civic organizations in the Midwest, focusing on her faith, and on the role of women.
At age 85, Lenore Romney entered the public arena once again, this time to support her son Mitt's 1994 campaign for the U.S. Senate seat from Massachusetts. She contrasted Mitt to his opponent, long-time incumbent Senator Ted Kennedy, who had been in the news for his drinking and sexual escapades. By then Kennedy had been an institution in Massachusetts politics and voters didn't seem to care about his personal life. Mitt Romney lost the race to Kennedy.
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 too late to save him. They had been married for 64 years.
Lenore's health declined during her final years. In July of 1998, at the age of 89, she suffered a stroke at her Bloomfield Hills home. She died several days later on July 7, at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan. She was survived by her four children, 24 grandchildren and 41 great-grandchildren. She is interred in Fairview Cemetery in Brighton, Michigan, in the same family plot as her husband.