Irl Donaker ("I. D.") Wilson, son of John F. and Hattie Donaker Wilson, was born in Rockwell (Cerro Gordo County), Iowa, on May 21, 1888. He earned a doctorate of veterinary medicine at Iowa State University in 1914. That same year, he married Lulu Belle Seely (1880-1952) in Faribault County, Minnesota; the couple would have one son. Wilson received a master's degree in animal pathology at Penn State University in 1918, and a Ph.D. from Iowa State in 1930. Wilson joined the faculty of Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College and Polytechnic Institute (later Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VPI)) as a professor of veterinary science in 1923, eventually becoming head of the university's biology department. In 1953, he married Eleanor Atkins Allison. Upon retiring from VPI in 1958, Wilson served for two years as an education advisor in India. He held memberships in the Virginia Veterinarian Medical Association, the American Veterinarian Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, and he served as president of the Virginia Academy of Sciences. I. D. Wilson died July 8, 1978, and was buried in Westview Cemetery, Blacksburg (Montgomery County), Virginia.