Prof. Henry Clay Dale. No person in a community wields a greater influence in the molding and shaping of character than does the school teacher. The capable, conscientious instructor stands nearer to the hearts of his charges than does any other persons. On entering the schoolroom the child’s mind is as plastic clay and is as readily made to take shape in the hands of the skilled educator. Therefore his great responsibility, and therefore the honored position which he holds in the community when his duties are faithfully discharged. Of the educators of Columbus, Kansas, Prof. Henry Clay Dale is one of the leaders. He had devoted his entire career to his profession, in the ranks of which he had steadily advanced until at this time he is principal of the Cherokee County High School.
Professor Dale was born on a farm in Jasper County, Missouri, August 30, 1882, and is a son of Henry Clay and Emma J. (Barker) Dale. The founder of the Dale family in America was Sir Thomas Dale, first governor of Virginia, and a prominent citizen during colonial days. The great-grandfather of Professor Dale was Elijah P. Dale, a son of George Dale. He was the father of Robert J. Dale, who was for many years engaged in farming but who lived retired for several years before his death, which occurred at Carthage, Missouri. At that place was born his son, Henry Clay Dale, April 6, 1848. He was reared and educated in Missouri, where he was married, and as a young man adopted farming as his life work, having been reared amid agricultural surroundings. For a number of years he cultivated the soil of a fine farm in Jasper County, Missouri, but in 1890 met with a serious injury which caused him to retire from farm work, and in the following year he came to Galena. This, however, was not his first visit to this locality, for as early as 1871 he had come to the same section and cultivated a farm on the present site of Galens, in addition to which he taught school before the cities of Empire and Galena were founded. On his arrival at Galena in 1891, Mr. Dale engaged in the real estate business, and for some years served in the capacity of justice of the peace, but at this time is manager of the business of his son, Oliver C. He is a democrat, and a member of the Baptist Church, in the work of which he had taken an exceedingly active part, and formerly having been church treasurer at Galena. Mr. Dale married Miss Emma J. Barker, who was born in Central Missouri, in November, 1851, and to this union there have been born eight children: Oliver C., born December 23, 1871, who had made a large fortune, owning with his children 1,000 acres of land in Payne County, Oklahoma, with large oil interests, and also the owner of the old home estate south of Carthage, a tract of 300 acres on which he is mining for lead and zinc; Charles R., born October 20, 1873, who is a plumber of Galena, Kansas; Arthur L., born January 30, 1875, who died in August, 1898; Magdaline, born November 3, 1877, who died in 1909, as the wife of Jesse Lewman, connected with a grocery store at Galena; Canada, born October 18, 1880, who died March 24, 1915, as the wife of J. W. Jarrett, a miner of Galena; Prof. Henry Clay; Gordon Alfred, born December 30, 1884, who is manager at Yale, Oklahoma, for the general merchandise house of his brother, Oliver C.; and Willie Anna, born November 3, 1886, who is the wife of Morris Peteet, engaged in the general merchandise business at Yale, Oklahoma.
Henry Clay Dale, the younger, received his early education in the public schools of Galena, Kansas, and in 1905 was graduated from the academy at Ottawa, this state. He next entered Ottawa University, from which he was duly graduated in 1909, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and in that year began his teaching career in the public schools of Galena. In 1915 he left the position of principal, which he had held at Galena for one year, to become principal of the Cherokee County High School, a most important and responsible office, in which he had under his charge seventeen teachers and 420 pupils. Professor Dale is a member of the Southeastern Kansas Teachers’ Association and the Kansas State Teachers’ Association, and had gained more than a local reputation as an educator. He had sought to better conditions in every way and to elevate the educational standard. A thorough student of the science of education and possessed of a natural instinct for child psychology, he had made his school a living, growing organism responsive to the best in the teacher and pupil. He possesses in marked degree the supreme gift of the teacher, combining a natural aptitude for teaching with the executive force necessary to energize a body of teachers. In politics Professor Dale is a democrat. He is active in the work of the Baptist Church, in which he is a chorister in both church and Sunday school. His fraternal connections include membership in Galena Lodge No. 194, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and the Knights and Ladies of Security.
In 1912, at Galena, Kansas, Professor Dale was married to Miss Edith Ina Mitchell, daughter of William and Martha (Hinchcliffe) Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell, who was a miner, is now deceased, but Mrs. Mitchell still survives and resided at Strafford, Missouri. Professor and Mrs. Dale have one child: Ina Maxine, who was born June 6, 1915.