Wilson was born on December 28, 1889, in Bellbrook, Ohio. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Education degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in 1910 and a Master of Science in education from the University of Tennessee in 1917. Wilson was appointed the head of the industrial arts department at the University of Tennessee in 1925.
[1] He died on November 2, 1959, at a doctor's office in Knoxville, Tennessee.[2]