ABSTRACT
Laura Lane Welch was born in Midland, Texas, on November 4, 1946, the only child of Jenna Hawkins Welch and Harold Bruce Welch. Her father, a native Texan and son of a home builder in Lubbock, was a credit officer with a loan company where he rose to be branch manager in the 1950s. Later he operated a home building company out of his residence. Laura's mother was originally from Taylor and then El Paso, where her father was a postal worker and home builder. She kept the books for her husband's building enterprise. Neither of Laura's parents had graduated from college, and they wanted their daughter to achieve more in education than they had accomplished.
