[1][2] DeMoro was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1949 and grew up in a working-class neighborhood.

She earned a degree in women's studies from Southern Illinois University.

She married in 1968 and after college, she and her husband moved to Santa Barbara, California, where she began to work on a PhD in sociology.

During that time, she worked as an organizer for the American Federation of Teachers and the University of California clerical workers.

DeMoro later described the sexism she experienced at the Teamsters as "intolerable," and in 1986, she took a collective bargaining position at the California Nurses Association.