Guide to the Donald Dean Parker Papers

Born on October 3, 1899, in Harford County, Maryland, Donald Dean Parker was the sixth of nine children of Reverend Albert George Parker and Jessie Bewley Parker. He graduated from high school in Macomb, Illinois, and attended Park College in Parkville, Missouri.

After graduating from Park College in 1922, Parker began a three year term as the head librarian at Shantung Christian University in Tsinanfu (Jinanfu), China. From 1929 to 1930, he taught English at the Camarines Sur High School in Naga, Philippines. The time spent abroad and the influence of his older brothers became the impetus for Parker's desire to become a missionary. In February 1930, the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. appointed and assigned Parker and his wife, Florence, as special term missionaries to the Philippine Mission.

From 1930 to 1931, Parker served as the librarian at Union Theological Seminary in Manila and, from 1931 to 1935, he was acting principal of the Union High School of Manila.

After completing his term in the field, Parker and his family returned to the United States, and he went on to pursue careers in both education and the ministry. Parker received his Bachelor of Divinity and his Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago in 1936. He was ordained in 1942 and filled pulpits in South Dakota and Minnesota while teaching history at South Dakota State College from 1944 to 1965.

Donald Dean Parker died on March 25, 1982.