Karl Maria Dorster was born in Riga on February 14, 1854. In that year, Riga was in Russia; today it is the capital of Latvia.

Karl's parents were Theodor Johann Dorster, born in Riga in 1831 and Louise Karoline Wortmann, born in Warsaw in 1832. Theodor Dorster, a master barber and Elder of the Artisans Guild, was a member of the Duma of Riga from 1886 to 1905.

Karl's grandfather Johann Jacob Dorster came to Riga from Hirschenhof, a German-speaking colony near Riga begun in 1766 by Catherine the Great. His great-grandfather Johann Martin Dorster traveled as a boy with his family from Niederhofen (a village between Heilbronn and Karlsruhe) to Vorbasse in Denmark from 1760 to 1765. He and his family were farmers in Moltkenberg colony. They then moved to Hirschenhof in 1766. Johann Martin's grandfather was Johann Martin Doster, born in 1655. 

Karl had a sister, Julie Caroline Lucia Dorster, born in 1862, and five brothers: Theodor Gustav Dorster, born in 1856; Friedrich Christian Dorster, born in 1858; Friedrich Leberecht Dorster, born in 1859; John Alfred Dorster, born in 1866; and Friedrich Eduard Dorster, born in 1868.

In a passport application, Karl stated that he arrived in Baltimore from Bremen on the Leipzig on July 22, 1871. He was listed as Carl Maria Dorsta, female (probably because of the 'Maria'), 'merchant' from Riga, seventeen years old.

In 1873, Karl wrote to Solomon Dyer Rinard, father of Mary Elizabeth, who was living with Karl in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He was 19 and Mary Elizabeth was 24. No record of a marriage has been found.  

In 1875, C. M. von Dorster was a music instructor at the Cheltenham Academy near Philadelphia.

Herbert Rinard von Dorster was born to Karl and Mary Elizabeth on May 9, 1879, in Philadelphia. A later census records that Herbert was the only surviving child of five. The 1880 Census has no record of Karl, Mary Elizabeth and young Herbert. Could they have been overseas?

Around the time of Herbert's birth, Karl returned to Europe. He then came back to the US, leaving Bremen on June 19, 1881 on the General Werder and arriving on July 3. He never returned to Mary Elizabeth Rinard, who may or may not have known that he was still alive.

Fort Wayne Gazette, 25 Aug 1883 announces appointment on 28 Aug of Prof. Carl M. Dorster of Leipsic (!) for the fall term of the Fort Wayne M.E. College as a teacher of music and modern languages.

On May 12, 1884 in Marshall County, Mississippi, he married Bessie H. Crump, born on November 10, 1866. Her family was from Holly Springs, Mississippi, just across the state border from Memphis.

In February of 1886 Bessie gave birth in Mississippi to a daughter, Carrie Dorster.

According to a 1913 passport application, on April 17, 1886 Karl was naturalized in Memphis. Sometime between then and 1891, he and Bessie were divorced.

In 1891 Mrs. Bessie E. Dorster is listed in the Memphis City Directory as living on the north side of Polk in the first house east of Walnut. Another directory from the period lists Elizabeth H. Dorster as boarding at 1336 Union Avenue.

In the 1900 Census Bettie Dorster, listed as divorced, and her daughter Carrie, now 14, were living with her parents James and Carry Crump at 104 Polk Street in Memphis.

Also living with the family was a cousin, Edward Hull Crump, who later became a powerful political boss and the Mayor of Memphis (1910-1916). Blues pioneer W. C. Handy wrote "Crump's Blues" (later called "Memphis Blues") for his 1909 mayoralty campaign. In Handy's autobiography Father of the Blues he says that in Crump's campaign he got to "play the blues to the general public for the first time in America".

In 1909 Karl's daughter Carrie Dorster married Harry Wilson.

E.C. Dorster was living with her daughter Carrie Wilson, married to Harry Wilson. He and their two daughters, Elizabeth, born around 1912, and Mary around 1915, were living with them at 1252 Agnes Street in Memphis.

Despondency over increasing deafness, advancing age and feebleness, with the additional worry over failure to have heard from relatives in Russia since before the beginning of the World War, is believed to have been the contributing causes for the suicide of Prof. C. M. Dorster who sent a bullet crashing through his brain at his apartment at 1212 Leighton avenue about 10 o'clock Wednesday evening.

Mrs. Dorster was sitting in their room reading a newspaper when she was startled by the sound of the pistol in her husband's hand, the body falling heavily to the floor of the room as she sprang up at the sound of the shot. Inmates of the home rushed to find the aged man dying on the floor.

Prof. Dorster was a member of a wealthy Russian family but he had been a resident of America for many years. He made a trip to Russia several years ago for the purpose of visiting his relatives and was in that country at the opening of the World war. Failure to locate any of his people during that time or to secure any information as to them since the war is believed to have contributed to his worries.

The musician conducted a studio at Memphis for several years, going from that place to Virginia college at Roanoke. After a tour there, Prof. Dorster and his wife moved to Anniston where their combined talent has attracted much attention, they being considered the best musicians and teachers ever located in this city.

Bessie Crump died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Memphis on December 8, 1925, aged 59. She was buried in Elmwood Cemetery. Karl's father Theodor Johann Dorster died in 1926, age 93.