Wallace Nethery born December 29, 1910 on his grandfather's farm outside the town of Gravity, Iowa. He received his Bachelor of Arts in English from Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1934. He served in the Navy during World War II on the USS Enterprise, stationed in the Pacific. He worked as the librarian at the Hoose Library of Philosophy at USC until his retirement in 1976. He married a fellow USC Library employee, Corry Sprangers, in 1975.

Corry Sprangers Nethery was born March 28, 1921 in the Netherlands, and moved permanently to the Unites States in 1956.

Corry and Wallace worked together on many printing projects, which Wallace printed on his Kelsey Co. miniature press bought in 1955. Over the course of nearly 40 years, the Netherys printed approximately 51 books and pamphlets. Most of the books were miniature books printed personally, and sold at Dawson's Book Shop. Nethery was friends with Saul and Lillian Marks of the Plantin Press, as well as Glen Dawson of Dawson's Book Shop.

In addition to printing, the Netherys also wrote and collected the artist and writer Max Beerbohm. Corry Nethery wrote a biography of Beerbohm's second wife Elisabeth Jungmann in 1987.

Wallace died in Los Angeles in 1996, in the middle of printing his last miniature book "Pastorale," which Corry later completed.