Christine M. Durham - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Durham is the oldest child of three, and she grew up in Southern California. When she was young, she aspired to be a novelist. Durham’s father initially worked for the IRS in Washington, D. C., and in 1960 he became a US Department of Treasury attaché at the Paris Embassy and the family went to French schools and learned French.

In the early 1960s, Durham moved to New England to attend Wellesley College, a women’s college at the time, where she met her husband, George Durham. It was also at this time that she received her patriarchal blessing from the Boston Stake patriarch (she was and is a Mormon), that said things that had a role in her decision to study law. She graduated in 1967 with an A.B. with Honors. She then went to Boston College for law to be near her husband while he finished his undergraduate studies at Harvard. When he was accepted to Duke Medical School, Durham transferred to Duke Law School. She graduated from Duke Law School in 1971.

She is now on the Board of Trustees of Duke University, where she is on the Executive Committee and chairs the Faculty, Graduate and Professional Schools Affairs and Honorary Degree Committees. For a personal account of her early life, see Mormon Women: Portraits and Conversations by James N. Kimball and Kent Miles.