Donald D. Housley was born in the Midwest and was raised in New England. He received an undergraduate degree from Houghton College in western New York and graduate degrees from the University of Connecticut and the Pennsylvania State University. He joined the faculty of Susquehanna University in 1967, serving as Assistant Dean of the Faculty for four years and Dean of Arts and Sciences for eight years. He was appointed Degenstein Distinguished Professor of History in 1998 and retired in 2004. Housely edited and largely authored Snyder County: From Pioneer Days to the Present has published articles in the Snyder County Historical Society Bulletin and Pennsylvania Heritage. He has long served as secretary of the Lutheran Historical Society of the Mid-Atlantic. Dr. Housley and his wife, Grace, raided their children, David and Deborah, in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, where they continue to live.