Donald G. Tornquist was born January 21, 1910 in Kidder, South Dakota. He received an MA in Speech at the University of Iowa in June 1937. Though he lists his address as Mitchelville Iowa on his separation papers, he taught speech and drama at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa from 1933 until 1942 when he joined the armed forces. In the armed services, he achieved the rank of Technical Sergeant, Headquarters, Headquarters Detachment, 80th Ordnance Group, where he served as a clerk.

He went around the world during his deployment, leaving San Francisco and sailing to New Zealand and Australia, then to India and Iran. He stayed for an extended time in Iran, and there are many photographs of his camp and Teheran in the scrapbook. From Iran he went to Marseilles and Munich. He was in the second wave of liberators at Dacchau, and there are some disturbing photographs in this collection of what they found when they arrived.