More about Romney's grandparents and polygamy.

Early life and background

See also: Romney family and Pratt family

George with his mother, Anna Amelia Pratt Romney, in Mexico in 1908

Gaskell Romney, sitting, and family, of Colonia Dublan, Chihuahua, c. 1908. Son George is fourth from the left.

Romney's grandparents were polygamous Mormons who fled the United States with their children owing to the federal government's prosecution of polygamy.^[1][2] His maternal grandfather was Helaman Pratt (1846–1909), who presided over the Mormon mission in Mexico City before moving to the Mexican state of Chihuahua and who was the son of original Mormon apostle Parley P. Pratt (1807–1857).^[2][3][4] In the 1920s, Romney's uncle Rey L. Pratt (1878–1931) played a major role in the preservation and expansion of the Mormon presence in Mexico and in its introduction to South America.^[5] A more distant kinsman was George Romney (1734–1802), a noted portrait painter in Britain during the last quarter of the 18th century.^[6]

Romney's parents, Gaskell Romney (1871–1955) and Anna Amelia Pratt (1876–1926), were American citizens and natives of the Territory of Utah.^[7][8][9] They married in 1895 in Mexico and lived in Colonia Dublán in Galeana in the state of Chihuahua (one of the Mormon colonies in Mexico), where George was born on July 8, 1907.^[1][4][10] They practiced monogamy^[1] (polygamy having been abolished by the 1890 Manifesto, although it persisted in places, especially Mexico).^[11] George had three older brothers, two younger brothers, and a younger sister.^[12] Gaskell Romney was a successful carpenter, house builder, and farmer who headed the most prosperous family in the colony,^[9][13] which was situated in an agricultural valley below the Sierra Madre Occidental.^[7] The family chose U.S. citizenship for their children, including George.^[7]

The Mexican Revolution broke out in 1910 and the Mormon colonies were endangered in 1911–1912 by raids from marauders,^[14] including "Red Flaggers" Pascual Orozco and José Inés Salazar.^[15] Young George heard the sound of distant gunfire and saw rebels walking through the village streets.^[15][16] The Romney family fled and returned to the United States in July 1912, leaving their home and almost all of their property behind.^[1][17] Romney later said, "We were the first displaced persons of the 20th century."^[18]

In the United States, Romney grew up in humble circumstances.^[19] The family subsisted with other Mormon refugees on government relief in El Paso, Texas,^[20] benefiting from a $100,000 fund for refugees that the U.S. Congress had set up.^[21] After a few months they moved to Los Angeles, California, where Gaskell Romney worked as a carpenter.^[17][20] In kindergarten, other children mocked Romney's national origin by calling him "Mex".^[22][23]

The family in Idaho in 1921, visiting the grave of George's younger brother Lawrence, who died that year of rheumatic fever.^[24] George is standing, second from left. His mother Anna is sitting on the left while his father Gaskell is standing, second from right.

In 1913, the family moved to Oakley, Idaho, and bought a farm, where they grew and subsisted largely on Idaho potatoes.^[24][25] The farm was not on good land and failed when potato prices fell.^[24] The family moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1916, where Gaskell Romney resumed construction work, but the family remained generally poor.^[24] In 1917, they moved to Rexburg, Idaho, where Gaskell became a successful home and commercial builder in an area growing owing to high World War I commodities prices.^[26]

George started working in wheat and sugar beet fields at the age of eleven and was the valedictorian at his grammar school graduation in 1921^[26] (by the sixth grade he had attended six different schools).^[27] The Depression of 1920–21 brought a collapse in prices and local building was abandoned.^[26] His family returned to Salt Lake City in 1921, and while his father resumed construction, George became skilled at lath-and-plaster work.^[28][29] The family was again prospering when the Great Depression hit in 1929 and ruined them.^[20] George watched his parents fail financially in Idaho and Utah^[30] and having to take a dozen years to pay off their debts.^[31] Seeing their struggles influenced his life and business career.^[29]

In Salt Lake City, Romney worked while attending Roosevelt Junior High School and, beginning in 1922, Latter-day Saints High School.^[29][32] There he played halfback in football, guard in basketball, and right field in baseball, all with more persistence than talent, but in an effort to uphold the family tradition of athleticism, he earned varsity letters in all three sports.^[10][28][33] In his senior year, he and junior Lenore LaFount became high school sweethearts;^[30][34] she was from a more well-assimilated Mormon family.^[35][36] Academically, Romney was steady but undistinguished.^[37] He graduated from high school in 1925; his yearbook picture caption was "Serious, high minded, of noble nature—a real fellow."^[28]

Partly to stay near Lenore,^[22] Romney spent the next year as a junior college student at the co-located Latter-day Saints University, where he was elected student body president.^[38] He was also president of the booster club and played on the basketball team that won the Utah–Idaho Junior College Tournament.^[38]

[edit] Missionary work

After becoming an elder, Romney earned enough money working to fund himself as a Mormon missionary.^[39] In October 1926, he sailed to Great Britain and was first assigned to preach in a Glasgow, Scotland, slum.^[39] The abject poverty and hopelessness he saw there affected him greatly,^[10] but he was ineffective in gaining converts and temporarily suffered a crisis of faith.^[40]

In February 1927, he was shifted to Edinburgh and in February 1928 to London,^[41] where he kept track of mission finances.^[42] He worked under renowned Quorum of the Twelve Apostles intellectuals James E. Talmage and John A. Widtsoe; the latter's admonitions to "Live mightily today, the greatest day of all time is today" made a lasting impression on him.^[10][42] Romney experienced British sights and culture and was introduced to members of the peerage and the Oxford Group.^[43]

In August 1928, Romney became president of the Scottish missionary district.^[43] Operating in a whisky-centric region was difficult, and he developed a new "task force" approach of sending more missionaries to a single location at a time; this successfully drew local press attention and several hundred new recruits.^[42][43] Romney's frequent public proselytizing – from Edinburgh's Mound and in London from soap boxes at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park and from a platform at Trafalgar Square – developed his gifts for debate and sales, which he would use the rest of his career.^[29][30][41] Three decades later, Romney said that his missionary time had meant more to him in developing his career than any other experience.^[39]