The Dale or Dael Family

This information about the Dale or Dael Family was supplied by Pam Fox of Waukesha. She read several of our online articles and volunteered to supply this information. We thank her for her generosity.

The information on Father Louis Dale and the rest of the Dale family was furnished to Pam Fox by Margaret Nelson, a descendent of Charles Dale.

The first reference to a Dael, Charles Dael, is from the Stevens Point Land Office in 1854 as having owned land near Ellis. No further information is available at this time. It is assumed that Charles Dael is August Dale Sr.'s father. Fr. Dale's relationship to August Jr. may be as an uncle. We hope to clarify this in the future.

Fr. Louis Dale

Sue Dale Platteter stated that Father Dael came to this country to complete his studies for the priesthood, indicating that he had begun his studies while still living in Belgium. This has been confirmed by information from The History of the Catholic Church in Wisconsin page 838 that Fr. Dahl (Dael) was visiting the Mosinee area as early as 1845. He held the first Catholic services in Wausau at the home of W. D. McIndoe in the fall of 1851, page749 (also mentioned in a newspaper article from Wausau Centennial Edition and numerous other references in his family’s obituaries).

Although Fr. Dael’s tombstone reads that he was ordained by Rt. Rev. Bishop Henni on December 22, 1852, the History of the Catholic Church in Wisconsin p.272 states that Bishop Henni went to South Bend in June of 1852 to confer the rites of ordination upon the theological students, Messrs. Doyle, Doughtery, Smith, and Dael. Perhaps the Bishop spent those interim months in supervising the instruction of the candidates, finalizing the process in December. The correct date is inconsequential; the location of the ordination is of interest, however. (South Bend Indiana? Was there a seminary there?)

By July of 1852 Fr. Dael had taken charge of the Congregation of St. Joseph’s Church in Fond du Lac. He was described as very energetic and a zealous worker. Accomplishments included during his pastorate were the enlargement of the church, considerable additions to its interior furnishings, and the building of a new and comfortable parsonage, page 408. Another book, More Than Brick and Stone, published by St. Mary’s Parish, the former St. Joseph’s, shows this same information, but places Fr. Dael as pastor between 1850 and 1855. In 1855 Fr. Dael also supervised the laying of the foundation for St Patrick’s church in Fond du Lac.

During his tenure at St. Joseph’s, Fr. Dael continued to travel the Fox River Valley as a missionary to the many small gatherings of Catholics who didn’t have churches of their own.

In 1859 to 1867 he was pastor of St. Mary’s Church in Appleton. In 1864 he opened a parochial school, under the direction of the Sisters of St. Agnes, but for want of funds that school was discontinued. (During 1860 to 1863 he was attributed to being pastor at St. Charles in Menasha, as well.)

In 1869 Fr. Dael took over the pastorate of St. Joseph’s Church in Berlin, p.604. “During his pastorate of four years the interior of the church was completed. Father Dael was then known all over the central portion of the State”. It was during this assignment that his young nephew, August Dale, from Sharon, served Mass for him and drove the buggy for Fr. Dael on his missionary circuits.

Other specific congregations mentioned as having been served by Fr. Dael, are the St. Louis congregation of Fond du Lac, St. Martin’s in Sharon, Immaculate Conception in Greenville. He was credited as having supervised the erection of the first church built in Osceola, too, no time given.

In 1875 Fr. Dael was made pastor of St. Louis Church in Fond du Lac. He died there in 1879 and is buried in the churchyard of St. Charles, in Taychedah, east of Fond du Lac.

August Dale, Sr. (Grandfather)

Grandpa lived with us for a short time when I was about eleven. We were living at 409 Scott Street, after my Dad’s death. He stayed in my mother’s downstairs bedroom, all closed up, so that the room would be very warm. I can remember going into the room and it was so warm and stuffy and full of pipe smoke.

He had lived for some time with my Aunt Mary in Antigo. I’m not sure why he came to live with us. It wasn’t long, however, as my mother was ill and needed an operation. He went back to live with Mary. I had the feeling that it was not a happy move. He had a pretty nice set-up at our house, with his own lavatory and no steps to climb.

August Dale was listed in the 1910 census as a handyman. Mom said that he could fix anything, including horses. The way she talked I always thought he was a vet. The people around Hatley would contact him to take care of all their sick horses and other farm animals.

Aunt Sue told me of a time when he burned himself terribly. He instructed his children to gather a variety of ingredients, including Begunder (sp) pitch from a specific tree. It was put in cold water, then cooked on the stove until it congealed. The children were then instructed to mix a poultice, which he “smeared all over his burned hand”. The hand was then wrapped and within days, the unveiling of the hand revealed a miraculous healing of the burn. He became renowned for this feat in the local gathering place, the corner tavern in Hatley. According the Aunt Sue, doctors in the locality tried to get his formula, but he would never reveal it. He did offer to put it on the patients for the doctors, however.

Patty remembers him mixing up some awful smelling concoctions he called cough syrups.

As a boy he lived in a town called Ellis, about nine miles to the east of Stevens Point. He drove the buggy for Father Dael and served Mass for him at Berlin, Wisconsin. In those days they traveled either on horseback or by buggy to visit the missions that Father Dael serviced.

Grandpa died in 1944 at the age of 86 and is buried next to his wife, Mary Noll, in the churchyard in Hatley.

Mary Noll Dale

Mary Noll was born in Alsace-Lorraine or Luxembourg in 1860. She came to this country with her family when she was seven years old. She grew up in the Portage County farming community of Ellis, Wisconsin, east of Stevens Point.

Mary and her husband, August Dale, were neighbors in the Ellis area. They began raising a family in Ellis and then moved the family to Hatley. It is believed that the move was in 1900. This is based on Aunt Sue’s statement that August Jr. was about thirteen at the time of the move. (He and his cousin, August Sossong, felt very grown-up when they were trusted with the task of driving the animals to Hatley)

Mary had inherited the family farm, but it was sold as August was not interested in farming. Upon arrival in the Hatley area, the family bought property outside of Hatley and lived there for a few years before moving into Hatley.

Hatley was predominantly Polish Catholic. The parish priest was from Poland and gave Catechism instructions to the local children in Polish. Mary Dale objected to this and sent a letter to the Bishop complaining that her children were not being taught properly in religion. The Bishop gave orders that the Dale children be taught separately in English.

Mary was an accomplished seamstress. She tailored men’s clothing by hand until her brother, Peter, bought her a sewing machine. Mary’s talent was passed on to at least three of her girls, as Barbara, Sue, and Margaret were all expert seamstresses.

Mary died of breast cancer in 1915 at the age of 55. She is buried in the churchyard in Hatley. Her death certificate lists her mother’s name as Helena Miceberger.

Laura Beatrice Dale (Laurie)

Aunt Laurie was the youngest of the Dale family, and spent alot of time at our house. Mom was always good to her and she was always welcome at the house for as long as she wanted to stay.

Laura stayed with Aunt Barbara in Wausau while going to high school. Upon graduation she attended Caylor School of Nursing in Rochester, Minnesota. She became a surgical nurse for the Mayo Clinic in Rochester and. remained there for many years. When she was in her forties she moved to Wausau and worked at a hospital there. She no longer worked in surgery, but was a supervising nurse. (Called a head nurse in those days.) Laurie never married. The story is that she was in love with a patient who died.

Laurie was very pretty even into her forties. After I married and moved away, from Merrill I lost touch with Laurie. Some years later she turned up at Patty’s house in Lansing, Illinois and she was very ill. Patty put her in a hospital.

After her recovery, Laurie moved to Appleton. She was living there, alone, when she died. She was found two weeks after her death. She had wanted her body donated to science, but it is unknown if it was suitable as adonor. Cousin Ellen Platteter DuBois said that her mother, Aunt Sue, attended to the details of the funeral.

August Dale Jr.

August Dale Jr. was born in 1885. He was my mother’s older brother. Notes from Aunt Sue indicate that he was five years younger than Aunt Barbara, who was the oldest of the Dale children. August lived in Hatley, employed by the Knoke Lumber Company as a clerk. When the lumber company relocated to Appleton in the 1920’s August also relocated to Appleton. His wife Reta is buried in Hatley in the family plot.

Reta Mary Clarke and August Dale were married in Merrill in 1919. Her parents were Charles D. and Katherine Clarke. Reta had been teaching school in Bevent, which is located, a few miles southeast of Hatley. Their ages were listed as 33 and 28. Their attendants were Mrs. G.S. Burnett (Barbara Dale) of Wausau and Percy Clarke of Merrill.

Reta died as a result of a difficult childbirth. Aunt Sue was in the hospital in Wausau after giving birth to her son, Bob, when a nurse came into her room and asked her to pray for a woman down the hall who was “having a hard time”. It turned out to be her sister-in-law, Reta. Reta died later of complications. The baby, Patricia, lived.

As a child I was told that Patty broke her neck while sledding. A genealogy chart made in 1977 by Patty Kush (with information from her mother) shows that Patty Dale died at the age of nine when she slipped on the ice and broke her neck when she hit her head on a railroad tie. August and Reta also had a son, Leonard, whose family lives in Appleton.

The house in Hatley that was owned by the Dales was given to August. Sometime after his relocation to Appleton the house burned. It had been left vacant, except for some remaining furniture. It isn’t known if the house was completely destroyed by the fire.

George Dale

George lived in Iron Mountain Michigan. His family is still living there. He was still alive when Aunt Sue died in 1985. His son drove him to Stratford for her burial there. George was a cabinetmaker.

George was working in Antigo at the time of his mother’s death in 1915. He was probably around 19 then.

My father, John Posey, visited George and his family often in Iron Mountain when his business for Employer’s Mutuals brought him in the area.

Lucille Dale

Lucille was a teacher. I don’t remember ever meeting her. Mother indicated that she never heard from her and didn’t know where she was. Aunt Sue did keep in touch, however, and told me that she lived in Fence, Michigan, and spent her summers in Arkansas. She never married.

She visited with Sue and her family in Stratford and Aunt Sue’s daughter, Ellen, remembers her as being very tiny, with bobbed, thin hair. She had a scar on the side of her neck from an accident. She had gotten too close to the stove and creamed corn spilled on her.

Lucille lived with Aunt Barbara in Wausau while she attended high school. Aunt Sue paid for Lucille to attend school. Lucille, in turn, paid for Laura’s schooling.

Mary Helena Dale Reinke

Mary and Uncle Will lived in Antigo. I remember visiting there in an old fashioned, plain house, with a farm-like atmosphere in the backyard. They had a huge pig with a very dirty nose and funny snort. I used to feed it apples and delighted in watching it munch the apple, snorting contentedly. Grandpa Dale lived with Mary and Will during the time I remember. Uncle Will was a bookkeeper for the railroad. They had a girl, Alice, and two sons, Bill and Allen. Allen was killed in WWII. He was one of the soldiers who were landed by gliders in their “controlled crashes”. Story has it that he was shot as he was leaving the glider.

Cresentia (Cress) Coffman

May have been spelled Crecentia or Crescentia. Her husband’s name was Ephraim. They lived in Kaukauna, Illinois and Clinton, Indiana, later in Stone Mountain, Georgia. My sister Patty kept in touch with them. She said that Aunt Cress was a very bubbly person. She and Uncle Eph were a very musical couple and played the piano and sang together. They were very loving and religious. I got the impression that they may have belonged to a church other than the family Catholic. They met in Hatley when Ephraim was a telegrapher with the railroad. Ephraim and Cressie eloped. He picked her up with a railroad handcar and they ran away together.

Names mentioned on a genealogy chart made up in 1977 by Patty Kush show possible children names Margie and Bettey. An Anthony Fuschi is mentioned and an adopted boy who was a musician.

Cress and Ephraim died in Stone Mountain, Georgia. Perhaps living with one of their children.

Barbara Margaret Dale Burnett

Barbara, born in 1880, was the oldest of the Dale children. Aunt Barbara lived in Wausau. I remember her very well. Mom and I visited her often since Wausau was only twenty miles away and there were both bus and train accommodations.

Barbara was married to Sam Burnett in 1903. He had been with Teddy Roosevelt’s Roughriders at San Juan Hill. I remember his dress sword resting in an umbrella stand in their foyer in their house in Wausau.

Their daughter Claire was married for a time and then divorced, an almost unheard of thing in those days. Her (Claire) daughter was Bobby, probably short for Barbara, and was about my sister Patty’s age. Several times a year we would receive big boxes of clothes that Bobby had grown out of and Mom would make them over for me. I couldn’t wear any “as is” as there was quite a difference in our sizes. Thankfully, Mom was an expert seamstress and I was one of the best dressed kids in town. No one would ever have guessed that they were “hand-me-downs”.

Barbara had another daughter. Aunt Sue remembered her visiting in Hatley shortly after the baby was born. The baby was very sick and Grandma Dale said that she didn’t think that the baby was going to make it. Grandma Dale baptized the baby. The baby did not live. I have since obtained pictures of Uncle Sam holding a small baby, the Bobby in the picture, too, so she may have been sickly and died when she was still a small child.

Barbara and her husband and baby must be buried in Wausau. Claire and Bobby moved to the Chicago area. I believe that Patty kept in contact for awhile. Claire’s married name was something like Hoetels.

Barbara paid for Susan to go to school, Susan paid for the next in line, Lucille, and Lucille, in turn, sent Laura to school. All three of them lived with Aunt Barbara at least while attending high school in Wausau.

Susan Helen Dale Platteter

Aunt Sue and Uncle Lee lived in Stratford, near Marshfield, Wisconsin. They had three children; Ellen DuBois, Bob, who was a pharmacist at the Marshfield Clinic for many years and is now located in Port Washington, Wisconsin, and George, a photographer, who lives in New York.

Ellen lives in Santa Clara and Aunt Sue lived with her during the time in which I was able to gather much of my information regarding the August Dale family.

My memory of Uncle Lee is from the period that my father died. He kept me occupied constantly, playing cards and joking to keep a ten year old from observing the grief around her. Aunt Sue apparently stayed with Mother much of the time during Dad’s illness. I don’t actually remember, but she probably took us in tow while Mom spent long periods in the hospital with Dad.

Aunt Sue was a teacher before her marriage, and it showed in her later life. She was very helpful, in fact, instrumental, in providing me with information to begin my research into the Dale family. On visits to Santa Clara in 1984 she talked to me while I took notes, filling in many gaps on my recollections of my mother’s family.

I prepared a paper based on my recollections and the notes I’d taken in our conversations and gave it to her for review. As a typical teacher, she corrected it for me, even to some typos and slips in grammar! I loved it, and still have the corrected paper today. Also corrected were some of the notes that I had jotted down in our conversations. At 91, there were times that generations overlapped in memory and her remembrances were clarified upon reading them in print.

I’m so happy to have had the opportunity to spend time with Aunt Sue in later years. To be that nice in old age, she must have been a very nice person during her lifetime.

She died in 1985 and is buried in Stratford.