Dale Charles Doerhoff is a fifth-generation German American whose ancestors came from the Province of Westfalen in the mid 1850s and settled in central Missouri along with thousands of others from the same region. Dale was born in “Charleytown” (St. Elizabeth P.O.) December 13, 1946 to parents for whom German was their first language in the home. He attended the St. Elizabeth R-4 School and graduated as the Valedictorian, Class of 1964. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree with honors at the University of Missouri. His academic interests were in political science, history, economics, and the humanities, including German language, literature and German history. He continued with higher education to earn a J.D. degree cum laude at the University of Missouri School of Law. He has held many leadership positions in his profession and in his community.

 

Dale has had a lifetime interest in the history of St. Elizabeth and in the interrelated German American settlement communities across the region. While he was still in high school, Dale interviewed the “old timers” at “Charleytown” whose stories would have otherwise been lost,. He collected German language materials like school books, prayer books, hymnals, and business records used in the community from inception in 1880 until the 1920s. His breakthrough came in 2002 when he discovered a copy of the Missouri Volksfreund among some estate papers he was probating and this led him to the Missouri Volksfreund archives at the State Historical Society of Missouri that are the core source of information for his book, “A Trip to Charleytown.”

 

Dale survives his wife, Ruth Ann, also a native of St. Elizabeth. They had three children, Heidi, Erica and Stephen. Dale remains active in the study of German America culture and is a member of the Society for German American Studies.