Lois Linse Gleiter was born in Mondovi, Wisconsin, on October 21, 1929, and raised on a farm near that community. Her involvement in the activities of the Farmers Educational and Cooperative Union of America (Farmers Union) began when she was eight years old, when she began to accompany her parents to meetings at the Alma Local, in Buffalo County. After graduating from high school and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Lois Linse attended the Encampment for Citizenship in New York, taught in Chile, and before her marriage in the middle-1950's, was a field worker for the National Farmers Union, headquartered at Denver.
