(3 March 1896-13 March1956), stationary engineer. (Albert Dale) Born in Essex, Eng. He is said to be son of Baron Michael Von Straasburg and his wife Dorothy Elizabeth Dale, daughter of Archbishop William Dale. The Dale name has been explained on the grounds that Von Straasburg, a research chemist in England with the rank of colonel in the German army, chose to use his wife’s name when he committed himself completely before the First World War to the British as opposed to the imperial German interest. Albert Dale, who was in Canada when the war began, joined the Canadian armed forces a few weeks later, on 25 Sept. 1914. He was a private, afterwards a corporal, in the Lord Strathcona’s Horse. His service with this famous regiment appears to date from 4 May 1915, the date on which he embarked for France, to 21 Jan. 1919. Albert Dale took part, as a member of Lord Strathcona’s Horse, in one of the last great cavalry charges, that of Moreuil Wood, France, on 30 March 1918. This was the fight for which Lt G. M. Flowerdew won the Victoria Cross. Albert Dale’s horse was shot under him, and in falling severely injured Dale himself. As a result, Albert Dale, whose military service officially ended on 10 April 1919, was hospitalized for several years after the war, and remained to some degree disabled through the rest of his life (a “helpless cripple,” Ostrom says). He was married 16 Sept. 1924 at St. Martin of Tours Church, Glen Robertson, to Allie MacDonald (1899-2 Sept. 1985) of Glen Sandfield, GC. Thereafter, they lived in Alexandria. He served for 2 years as a town councillor. He died at a veterans’ hospital in Montreal. (six children) He was buried in St. Finnan’s cemetery. A Presbyterian at the time of his military service, he later became a Roman Catholic. Late in his life he gave his recollections of the Battle of Moreuil Wood in a letter to the Ottawa Journal , written in response to an article that newspaper had recently published on the battle.

Glengarry News 15 & 29 March 1956, with article on him by Maior Angus Mcdonald * Dale gravestone,St. Finnan’s cemetery, Alexandria * Ostrom 46 * obituaries of mother-in-law, GN 14 Jan. 1938 (Fraser Obits. I, 167), wife, GN 18 Sept. 1985, son David Dietrich Dale, GN 6 May 1987 * Captain S.H. Williams, “Stand to Your Horses”: through the First World War 1914-1918 with the Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians) (1961) 291 * military service files, other information, from NAC and Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians) Regimental Museum, Calgary * Moreuil Wood: see Dictionary of Canadian Biography XIV, 362-363 (biog. of Lt Flowerdew) * letter to Journal: repr. Glengarry News (ND) and The Strathconian, May 1954 (fine portrait 1923) * GN 6 Dec. 1935, elected town councillor