Ho-Am Lee Byung-chull was born on February 12, 1910, in the town of Jungkyo-ri, Jeonggok-myeon in Uiryeong County of South Gyeongsang Province. He was the youngest child among two sons and two daughters, raised by his mother Kwon Jae-rim and his father Lee Chan-woo, who was a Confucian scholar and successful farmer. Ho-Am spent his childhood in a relatively comfortable, stable environment.
At the age of 6, Ho-Am began his formal education at the private school Munsan-jung, which was founded by his grandfather, Munsan Hong Seok Lee. There, he studied Chinese classics and when he was 12, he transferred to Jisu Elementary School in Jinju. The following year, he transferred to Soosong Elementary School in Seoul. In 1926, he went on to study at Jung-dong Middle School and in the same year he married Doo Eul Park, descendant of Park Paeng Nyeon, who was a member of the Sayuksin.
After marriage, Ho-Am continued to devote himself to his studies and in April 1930, he moved to Japan to pursue a politics and economics major at Waseda University. However, due to medical reasons, he was unable to complete his studies and was forced to move back to Korea. This was the fourth time he had to leave school, following two earlier instances in elementary school and one in middle school. In the end he finished his education without receiving a single graduation certificate.
