Stone was born in Meadville, Pennsylvania. The second of four children, she is the daughter of Dorothy, an accountant and homemaker, and Joseph Stone, a tool and die manufacturer. She has Irish ancestry, with roots in Galway.

As a teen, she worked at a McDonald's restaurant. When she was a young woman her IQ was tested at 154 points. After skipping a grade in school, she was involuntarily transferred from Saegertown High School to Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, enrolling at the age of fifteen years. She returned for a visit to her college in March 2007 for academic purposes, and there to her surprise she received an honorary doctorate from former university president Frank Pogue.

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