Dale Oliver was born in New York on May 28, 1914, to George Oliver, an immigrant from Scotland, and Eleanor Kraft, whose father was an immigrant from Germany (a baker who lived in Brooklyn, New York). He had two siblings, Robert (born around 1911) and a younger brother who died of a contagious disease as an infant. In 1915, the family resided in Oyster Bay, on Long Island, and by 1925 they had relocated to Brooklyn. Dale attended the Bedford School, PS 3 at Bedford Avenue, graduating on June 26, 1929. He continued at the Brooklyn Technical High School, finishing there in 1933. He attended college briefly, then worked for restaurant equipment manufacturer.

During World War II, the factory was retooled to make shell casings. Although he enlisted to fight in the war, he was never called to serve. He eventually worked at Revere Copper and Brass as a sales manager, specializing in aluminum products. Dale left Brooklyn sometime after he married Florence "Mickey" Schmueck, in August 1941, and before their first son, Robert was born in November 1942. They lived for a while in New City, New York, then relocated to Somers, New York around 1951. They had five children, Robert, John, Elizabeth, George, and Jeanne. Dale died in 1974 and Mickey became the Town Historian in Somers shortly after that, a position which she held until her death in May 2011.

Sources:

New York State census records, 1915 and 1925

Donor correspondence, 2011