Dale was born in the hospital in Wahpeton, ND to Ed and Celia Mattson on March 5, 1934. They lived in Tintah, MN for the first year of Dale’s life, and then the three of them moved to Detroit Lakes, where they lived on the north side of the tracks on Washington Avenue. He was an only child. Dale’s dad was a barber and his mom was a homemaker. When not playing with the Thomas boys on the north side, Dale spent a lot of his childhood in his dad’s shop, where he shined shoes.