Alexander Boden was born on 28 May 1913, shortly after his parents William and Helena Boden arrived in Australia from Ireland. His parents established a drapery business in the main shopping centre of the Sydney suburb of Chatswood. Alex was the middle child between his two sisters.
His father, William Boden, was born in Ballinasloe on the border of counties Galway and Roscommon. In Williams youth, he went to join his uncle in the latters evidently prosperous drapery story in Magherafelt, County Londonderry. A surviving photograph of the staff of the store is impressive: some fifty men and women in starched collars and prim blouses stand in well-ordered ranks. The move to Australia in 1913 followed the emigration of Williams two brothers and a sister. His mother, formerly Helena Isabella Hutchinson, a schoolteacher, came from Knockboy, near Broughshane, County Antrim, of a family of schoolteachers and clerics.
Alex Bodens education was at Willoughby Public School and North Sydney Boys High School. His fathers premises were owned by the pharmacists Washington H. Soul, Pattinson and Co. and one day, while the young Alex was still at school, his father asked his landlord what was the best career for a boy.  Buyin and sellin  was Dr. Pattinson's counsel. In a greatly expanded sense it could be said that Alex Boden followed this advice.