Dale Robert Clausing was born on June 18, 1928 to Otto and Alice (Stark) Clausing in Kansas City, Missouri. Dale grew up in Ottumwa, Iowa, where he became an avid outdoorsman — hunting, fishing, and trapping his way through the wild places outside town. It was also during his boyhood that Dale began to hone the mechanical and problem-solving skills that he got from his dad while working at Clausing Manufacturing Company, the family shop.
After graduating from Ottumwa High, Dale enlisted in the Army and was assigned to the 34th Infantry Regiment in Japan. At the young age of eighteen, he supervised four American personnel and Japanese workers in the operation of the Sasebo telephone exchange. He was discharged on January 14, 1948.
Dale returned to work in the family shop until the fall of 1949, when he entered the University of Iowa. He would look back on his college days as some of the best in his life. This was especially so because in 1953 Dale had a blind date with a nurse named Gertrude Regina Wille, and six months later, on January 9, 1954, they were married in Garnavillo, Iowa. A few months after that, Dale graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering.
He began his professional career at the Trane Company in La Crosse, Wisconsin, which manufactured heating and air conditioning systems. Trane encouraged initiative and creativity, giving Dale the chance to develop the leadership skills he’d begun to practice in Japan. This was also the time when he and Gertie began to expand their family, first with the birth of Ellen, then in later years with the births of Mark, Mary, Jeffrey, Thomas, and John.
During these years Dale and his family lived in La Crescent, Minnesota. There, Dale was able to pursue the outdoor activities he loved; countless hours duck hunting, muskrat trapping, and fishing with his sons and many good friends and neighbors. Dale also spent hours molding and painting hundreds of his own duck decoys, stretching muskrat pelts, and building tables, china cabinets, and basement playrooms. This was also when the tradition of family vacations began with frequent camping trips around Minnesota and visits to Gertie’s family.
In 1969 Dale and his family moved to Sartell, Minnesota, where he started a new job as the Director of Manufacturing Engineering at DeZurik Corporation, a manufacturer of industrial valves. Dale’s years at DeZurik were filled with professional accomplishments. He led the team that designed a new kind of butterfly valve and got a patent for it. He was also a team leader when DeZurik switched from a coke-powered foundry to an electric melt process in order to reduce harmful emissions and air pollution. The final project he managed was to devise a cement cap to cover the cupola furnace sludge in the Sartell landfill, ending the danger that the lead in the sludge would leak into the local groundwater. Dale truly enjoyed this career as a problem-solver, a career in which he was given real problems to solve and excellent coworkers with whom to solve them. Dale retired in 1987.
His years in Sartell were also devoted to his family. With six children to take care of and a house to maintain, Dale and Gertie still found plenty of time to continue their camping trips, to hunt and fish, to enjoy his woodworking, and to play hundreds of games of bridge. Shortly before Dale’s retirement, they purchased property on Big Sand Lake near Park Rapids, Minnesota. Dale designed and built a cabin on that property so the family would always have a beautiful and relaxing place to visit when vacation time rolled around. Building a cabin on a lake had been a dream of Dale’s since he was a teenager, and he dearly loved being able to share the reality of that dream with his wife and children.
Gertie passed away in 1988. Dale moved up to the cabin and lived by himself for a time until he was joined by his then-bachelor son Mark. He worked part-time at Leech Lake Realty in the nearby town of Walker. But his main activities were to spend many happy hours fishing with grandchildren, touring the lake on his pontoon boat, raising hollyhocks, and taking walks with his much-loved black lab, Casey.
Dale traveled often. He made numerous trips to visit his sisters in Colorado and Illinois. And in 1991 he took the first of many fly-in fishing trips to Anishinabi Lodge near Ear Falls, Ontario. He enjoyed these trips so much that he talked several friends, all his sons and grandsons, and even his sister Lyda into joining him on one or another of these trips to the far North for fun and feasting on the lake trout.
When the winters got to be too much for him up on Big Sand Lake, Dale was able to continue the life with family that he had always loved when his daughter Mary and her husband Curt welcomed him into their home in Maple Grove. From there he continued his travels for a number of years up to Anishinabi Lodge by air and around the country in his Ford Focus to visit family. At Curt and Mary’s, he had a workshop downstairs where he built an elaborate electric train setup, built martin houses and bright red cardinal whirly-gigs and painted a small army of nut-crackers. For as long as he had the strength, he filled his time making things to delight his loved ones and remembering delights long past.
Dale’s faith was stirred as a young man while walking alone out in the midst of nature. He was awed by the majesty and complexity of the natural world that surrounded him; a powerful God must have created all of this.
Dale began his life with Christ when he joined the Roman Catholic Church and married his sweetheart Gertie. Dale loved to celebrate our Lords’ mass with his family on Sundays and educated his children in the Catholic school system. Dale and Gertie joined a small church group and spent many gatherings discussing faith and how it pertained to life. Dale’s faith faltered when his fervent prayers failed to heal his beloved wife from cancer. He occasionally celebrated mass, continuing to believe in the creator God, but doubted that God heard the prayers of individuals.
In his later years while living with his daughter Mary, Dale often remarked how pleased he was that Mary, Curt and their children were a family who attended church together. Dale joined Mary and Curt in their small group discussions and his faith re-kindled. He joined Maple Grove Lutheran Church and once again felt part of a church family. Dale attended the weekly Crossways Bible Study led by Pastor Chris and found the discussions fascinating; his favorite book of the Bible was Galatians. Dale and Mary had many discussions about God and Jesus and what part they play in our daily lives. Dale often emphasized that a walk in the woods with open eyes is all that is needed to see the existence of God.
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Psalm 19:1 NIV