Born in 1923 in Clementon, New Jersey, Wayne Beam Morrell graduated from Lincoln Preparatory School in Philadelphia, PA, and attended the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art. At the suggestion of his grandfather, he took a fourteen-week course of a government-sponsored evening course on aeronautics and drafting at Drexel University in Philadelphia. He also took a correspondence course through the Famous Artists School, a well-known and respected correspondence school for commercial .