Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993) was born in Bowersville, Ohio. He graduated from Bellefontaine High School, Bellefontaine, Ohio. He has earned degrees at Ohio Wesleyan University (where he became a brother of the Fraternity of Phi Gamma Delta) and Boston University School of Theology. Raised as a Methodist and ordained as a Methodist minister in 1922, Peale changed his religious affiliation to the Reformed Church in America in 1932 and began a 52-year tenure as pastor of Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan. During that time, the Church's membership grew from 600 to over 5000, and he became one of New York City's most famous preachers. In his early life Norman Peale, an author of 46 books, had faced many hardships, but for his hard work and dedications he became a renowned clergyman in all of United States.