Arthur J. Besler was born to parents born in Russia; they came to America in 1907, married in South Dakota, and became part of the Homestead Act with fifteen sons and daughters. By the time he left home at seventeen, the homestead cows and sheep ranch were approximately five thousand acres or more. When Arthur was growing up, his father read the Bible almost every morning, and Jesus became very real to him. He remembered a man who looked at him; he knew it was Jesus.