Lisa Whelchel was born in Louisiana and is of French and Native American descent. She has been married to Richard Wilson since 1979 and has two children with him. Her nationality is primarily identified as that of American Indian. She has also been described as being of German and Italian descent.
Lisa Whelchel was raised in Mississippi and was named after her great aunt who was a White woman from Omaha, Nebraska whose maiden name was Winneka. Her middle name was given at birth as Mary Josephine. As a child, she was very much interested in horses and the Western music that were popular in the era she was growing up. Whelchel sings about horses in her hit song, “That’s What Makes the Grass Fly” and was a huge fan of rodeo and Western stars such as Jesse James, center Stallone, rancher Denny Price, as well as cowboy movies and western stars like John Wayne.
According to several sources, the actual age of Lisa Whelchel at the time of her marriage to Richard Wilson was twenty-one years old although other sources compare her age to that of an average woman of that time. The exact height and weight of Whelchel at the time of her marriage to Richard Wilson is unknown. However, it has been documented that the starlet was probably an inch taller than her partner and that she used the stilts during their dance sequence in the movie, The Pursuit of Happyness. Although it is difficult to verify exactly how tall Lisa Whelchel was at the time of her marriage to Richard Wilson, one can state that she was not too far short as some of the other leading stars of her day were at the time of their wedding.