Beyond the Tree: Memories by Eli F. Gates

Before my Dad died, he and Shirley wrote down some memories of his life. This blog is strictly his memories as captured by my sister. I have added pictures to the narrative only. My next blog will be my story of his life.

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I was born February 18, 1926 at home on our ranch near Tempe, Arizona. My parents were Herbert Ellis Gates and Maude Gertrude Powell Gates.

A year and a half later my brother Bill, William Herbert Gates, was born on September 1, 1927.

My mother was teaching school at Kyrene Elementary School when she met my dad. They were married on December 20, 1924. My dad’s parents had a little house built for them and gave it to them for a wedding present. It sat by the old canal on the ranch land near 48th street and Ray Road.

I was named after my grandfather Gates, Eli Fount Gates. He went by the name Fount. He was born in Lytle, Texas on October 6, 1874. He was the oldest child in a family of 5 boys and 2 girls.
He married my grandmother, Elizabeth Annette Collins Gates on July 14, 1898 in Pearsall, Texas.

Grandpa first came to Arizona in 190?. He was working for the railroad. They lived near Maricopa, Arizona. Grandpa was in charge of the water tanks and the pumps for them. He developed typhoid fever and the railroad sent him to Los Angeles to a doctor there. He did not trust the doctors there and they moved back to Texas to be near his brother Ellis Franklin Gates who was a doctor. He trusted Ellis to help him. (Note: Per Ellis Gates’ bio, Ellis started practicing medicine in 1908.)

Eli, Fount & Bill Gates

They returned to Arizona in 1918 and brought the place near Tempe. By that time, my dad’s oldest sister Floy had married and remained in Texas.

My grandpa was a small built man. He was short and had a small build. He did not meet people very well. He was rather quiet and didn’t have a lot to say. He did not like smoking and had no use for people who drank. He ended up committing suicide on July 2, 1934, when I was only 8 years old. He never fully regained his health after having they typhoid fever and many other things were upsetting to him.

My grandmother, Elizabeth Annette Collins Gates, was a complete opposite of Grandpa. She was the youngest child of a family of 6 boys and 3 girls. She was born in Lytle, Texas on April 11, 1880. She was very outgoing and loved people. She was just about as wide as she was tall.

My aunt Mary Lou finished school at Tempe and then went to the Tempe Normal School. She married and had a daughter Mary Louise. When she divorced a few years later, Mary Louise came and lived with Grandma Gates.

One of Grandma’s brother and his wife died and left a daughter (Ida Claire Collins – daughter of William Carroll Collins) who also came to stay with Grandma.

Then during the great depression, my mom and dad went to work at the Phoenix Country Club. They sent me to live with my mother’s parents; the Powell’s who lived in Phoenix. They sent my brother Bill tostay with Grandma Gates also.

My mom had a friend that she had gone to school with back in Collinsville, Illinois. This friend was married to the manager of the Phoenix Country Club. That is how my mom and dad got those jobs.

My mom worked in the bakery. Her specialty became yeast rolls and cakes and pies. She decorated cakes and made the tallest lemon meringue pie I have ever seen. Dad was the manager of the pool and the life guard. My mom’s sister Dorothy and her husband Clovis Stockwell also worked there. Dorothy worked in the office doing the books, and Clovis was a groundskeeper.

When I was 10 years old, my mom and dad had another baby boy named Kenneth Ellis Gates, born February 26, 1936. He was a cute baby, round and fat. But it soon became apparent that something was not right with Kenneth. He was a very active child but he did not talk. My parents took him to many different medical clinics trying to find out if he was deaf or what was wrong with him. We did not know if it could have happened when he fell off a horse when he was young or if he was born that way. And we never learned what was wrong with him. My mom worried about him. She worried he might drown in the canal that was near our house. When it was about time for him to start school, my brother Bill and I came home from school one day and he was gone. They had taken him to the Arizona Children’s Colony. And I never saw him again after that. He died at the Arizona State Mental Hospital on March 17, 1978.

My grandpa Powell whom I called Dad Powell was a large man. He was just about the size I am – in height and weight. He had a bad leg, and used a cane and sometimes 2 canes to walk. Some say the problem I have with my leg is congenital and may have been passed down to me through him.

His name was William Constant Powell and he was born August 25, 1871. The Powell’s came from Germany. They moved to Arizona right after my mom graduated from high school.

My grandmother Powell whom I called Mom Powell did babysitting. Some of the people she babysat for were very wealthy and had a lot of pretty knick-knacks and dishes and things. Dad Powell said she was like a monkey. She wanted everything she saw.

I guess that is where my mom got it. She always had a lot of pretty dishes and knickknacks. I stayed with mom and Dad Powell for 2 years while my parents worked down the street at the Phoenix Country Club.

I went to kindergarten at a nearby school, Emerson Elementary School. Then when I was about to start first grade, I went back out to the ranch to go to Kyrene Elementary School.

My dad had 2 sisters, Floy who was 4 years older and Mary Lou who was 2 years older. My dad was the youngest.