Deta Ruth Petersen Neeley was born in 1898 in Bear River City, Utah. She attended Utah State University, known then as the Utah Agricultural College (UAC), from 1917-1918 and again from 1931-1933, earning her bachelors and masters degrees in education. From 1934 to 1937, she studied at the University of California at Berkeley and finished her Phd requirements with a dissertation entitled, "Rural Teachers' Problems and Supervisors' Procedures for Dealing With Them." Prior to completing her Phd, she wrote several articles on teaching,including "A Comparison of the Vocabularies of Thirty-Three Primers," which she co-wrote with John A. Hockett in 1936. Deta Neeley was the author of a number of LDS children's books, including a series of biographies written about the presidents of the LDS church, as well as children's version of the Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price. In addition to her studies, she also worked as the elementary advisor and assistant superintendent of schools in Millard County and taught school in both Utah and California. She married N. Glen Neeley in 1921 in Logan, Utah. In 1965, Deta P. Neeley died of Parkinson's disease.

Nathan Glen Neeley was born in 1896 in Franklin, Idaho. He earned a bachelor's degree in education from Utah State University in 1933, and a masters degree in education from the University of California at Berkeley in 1936. He taught elementary school in California and Utah, and farmed in Box Elder County, Utah. Glen Neeley co-wrote several books with his wife Deta, including Jesus of Nazareth and Paul of Tarsus, as well as a series of children's biographical books on the presidents of the LDS church. Due to his wife's debilitating disease, Glen Neeley also served as her scribe, taking dictation when she could no longer write. Shortly before his death in 1967, he wrote a biography of his wife, entitled A Brief Biographical Account of the Life and Accomplishments of Deta Ruth Petersen Neeley, which is located in the Special Collections and Archives department of Utah State University under the call number 920 N292-N.