Necrology

Thomas James Dale '37

Dec. 2, 1917-Aug. 17, 1999

Thomas James Dale ’37, a retired production control supervisor for the Polaroid Corp., was born on December 2, 1917, in Cold Spring, NY. The second of fours sons of Francis C., a lawyer, and Imogen James Dale, all of whom attended Hamilton, he entered the College from Peekskill High School in 1933. During his year on the Hill he joined Psi Upsilon and took part in productions of the Charlatans. He subsequently took courses in economics and banking and finance at several universities, including Wesleyan and New York University.

Tom Dale was employed by Bankers Trust Co. in New York City for two years until 1939, when he went to the Panama Canal Zone to work for Casa Philco. Called to military service in 1942, he remained in the U.S. Army Air Force through the end of World War II, including two years in the China-Burma-India theater. He attained the rank of staff sergeant and earned the Bronze Star.

In 1946, Tom Dale returned to Panama as a foreign sales representative for the Ford Motor Co. Subsequently employed by Ford in Venezuela, he returned to the States in 1948 to join Durisol, Inc., in Beacon, NY. In 1956, after three years with the Thermo-Form Co. in El Segundo, CA, he began his career with Polaroid in Waltham, MA. Promoted to general supervisor of production control, he also served for a time as manager of material services at Polaroid’s production facilities in the Netherlands. Following his retirement in the late 1970s, he moved from New Hampshire to Lake Havasu City, AZ, where he became a real estate broker.

While residing in Salem, NH, Tom Dale was involved in local politics. He served as treasurer and chairman of the Republican town committee and was also a delegate to the 1964 Republican National Convention as well as an alternate delegate to the 1968 Convention. During his years in New Hampshire he and his wife, the former Marie M. Mooney, whom he had wed in 1946, also reared their four sons, Gerald F., Thomas J., Jr., David A., and Christopher C. Dale.

The College recently obtained verification of Thomas J. Dale’s death on August 17, 1999. Information on survivors is lacking. He was predeceased by his brothers John Denny Dale ’36, in 1993, and by Chalmers Dale ’43, in 1994. His youngest brother, Gerald Fitzgerald Dale ’43, was killed in 1944 while on a World War II flying mission.

 

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