Alvin Kenneth Gates | Gates Tribe

Alvin Kenneth Gates

Alvin’s grandfather Jacob and father Benjamin arrived (from Carmi, Illinois) in Harrisburg, Illinois in January 1892. Both are farmers continuing the noble tradition, that led Daniel Webster to say, “Farmers are the Founders of Civilization.”

Alvin was born on June 6, 1905

At a very young age, Alvin sets the model for Richard and Jim for taking care of chickens, cows, horses, guineas, steers, pigs – and we did it for years.

Alvin goes to local elementary schools, and then graduates from Harrisburg Township High School (HTHS) in May 1920. The big new gymnasium was not added until 1925. Got to add some focused history here.

1890: first HTHS classes
1896: Harry Taylor became principal and held that job for 50 years – was there when Richard, Jim and David attended
1900: first year to have all 4 classes (freshman through seniors)
1904: Full accredited by the University of Illinois
1940: Largest ever graduating class with 226 graduates

It was to be noted that in this timeframe and beyond there were independent/separate Harrisburg schools across the railroad tracks, for the colored people and students…even when recall that the Civil War was in 1861-1865.

Alvin keeps farming with/for his dad, who was always busy with politics, school issues and formulating other new ideas.

Alvin marries Dora Hess from Wasson and Eldorado Township High School in 1925 at the age of 20.

During 1926-1927 school year, Alvin attends the university of Illinois as a freshman of general studies while Dora worked locally.

Alvin and Dora then moved to St. Louis, Missouri where Alvin attended the School of Pharmacy at St. Louis University. They lived on Pine Street nearby. I remember mom asking me (when she was visiting my family when we lived in Florissant, MO) to take her to Pine Street to reminisce.

May 19 1928 Alvin Kenneth Gates Jr was born in St Louis, MO.

Oct 1 1928 Alvin Kenneth Gates Jr died in St Louis, MO.

Alvin and Dora go back to farming. Alvin is farming with those huge Belgium horses to pull a wagon and “shuck” corn (i.e., take a glove with a hook in it to rip the leaves off the corn and then throw the bare ear of corn into the Belgium horse drawn wagon. (PHOTO). He is reading and hearing about “tractors” with gasoline engines that can pull farm implements like plow, discs, harrows, manure spreaders, etc. These machines will have the power to pull that of many horses and will absolutely revolutionize farming!

Alvin and Dora go to live in Chicago, Illinois and both get a job at the International Harvester Company that is building tractors. F-12 is one of the earliest models. I have data that shows they are still there in Chicago in 1935. But Jacob William died in 1928, so his farm situation had changed.

They decide to leave the big, bustling city of Chicago and come home to Harrisburg. In 1938 they were living in the Old Gates Place and they had Richard Allen Gates on Jan 26, 1938. Twenty-one months later, they had their 3rd son, James Kenneth on Oct 30, 1939. Their 4th son, David Lee Gates was born on Aug 26, 1943 in Eldorado. We all 5 lived in the Ole Gates Place farming both that farm and Grandpa Ben’s farm – just a mile away.

With all this help, Alvin started getting involved in politics, like his father did.

The Ole Gates Place was a big house on Lindale Road. Set on a concrete block system, it had 11-foot ceilings and 9-foot doors on first level with a pantry, kitchen, dining room, front room with fireplace and piano, closet and sitting room with coal stove for heating. It did not have running water because electricity had not yet come out to the rural areas of America. So we had a hand-operated pump in the front yard and carried water into the kitchen. But, thanks to Grandpa Gates and the REA, we got electricity in the house when Richard was in the 4th grade (10 years old). Until that time, we studied and read by kerosene lamps.

It was not much longer that we got an open line telephone system. Our unique call was for someone to ring up one long and one short and another long ring.

The upstairs had 3 bedrooms. One bedroom was for parents, one bedroom shared by the boys and the third was for visitors. The boys’ bedroom also had a library of books filed in pull-up and push-in glass cabinet doors. So many books! All kinds of books! Had stairs that went up to a landing and then turned 90 degrees to go on up to the bedroom floors. The downstairs walls were wallpapered. Had outdoor porches on 3 sides of the house.

Every year Richard, Jim and David could do more with the cows, pigs, chickens, guineas, steers, etc. Moreover, they could now drive tractors with plows, discs, harrows, etc.

Dad got the first tractor – an International Harvester F-12 with the pull power of 10 horses, call 10 horsepower. WOW! He had this by the time Richard was 4 or 5 years old (1943ish). Be sure to see the photos of the family of tractors we acquired over time. PHOTOS We went through the sequence of IH’s F-12 to a “hugh” McCormick Deering W-30 with 18 horsepower – a Ferguson 20 horsepower and a Farmall M with 25 horsepower (in some factory tests demonstrated 33 horsepower). First 2 were steel wheeled and last 2 had were rubber tired. I fondly remember driving the last 3 – started driving at 8 or 9 years old. I remember driving the hagh MD W-30 – would sit upon the back big wheel fender with my feet in the seat and hear the power.

We were all very lucky really, because January 1937 Harrisburg’s Daily Register presented photos and articles on a severe Saline River flooding that had waters 10’ deep over Saline County – just 1 inch more and water would be in the Old Gates House upstairs – don’t know what depth it would have taken to float/move the house off its foundation and break it up. I felt like Superman (and he had not even been in the movies yet). I would feel like a skinny kid that was weak though when I turned the W-30 too sharp, and catch dirt build-up around big Front Iron Wheels – then had to walk home or to another field and have Richard or Dad come back to use their strength to turn it back straight. Or I would look back at 8-10 feet wide rolls of deep cutter discs and start to think about how many pieces I would be cut into if I fell off the fender. I likely spent too much time imagining things or dreaming up different/better ways of doing things on the farm.

But as Richard, Jim and David got older, Dad had more and more time freed to engage in politics. He thoroughly enjoyed his elected position to be the Commissioner of Cottage Township. He also engaged in State politics and would work with Republican Everett Dirksen, both as a State Representative and later a State Senator in Washington DC. He would sit in his chair and read Illinois State Statutes for hours – but was easy really. We did not have anything to do in the evening until we got electricity.

After dinner, we had a radio after we got electricity about 1948, when I was in second grade at New Hope School. But we spent most time not hearing it or listening to his favorite programs. We never got a TV at the Ole Gates House. Dad thought TV would be a bane to American Society. (Bane means to ruin, harm, spoil). In those days, every Saturday night Mom and Dad would visit friends in town and eat/play cards/ talk while we boys walked up to town and went to the movie theater. When the friends got TV – and started turning them on after dinner, dad would be ready to go home. He preferred to talk and ask questions and learn something important or helpful to himself or his family or the world in general.

Mom and Dad moved from the Ole Gates Place to his Dad’s house, after Benjamin died – to take care of his Mom – who had health problems. The move was only a mile away. This house was also 2 levels – had running water, 2 kitchens (up and down), flush toilet, tub, full electric. They took care of Olive Bea for 15 years. Alvin died 1 year later.

Dora stayed a few years and then moved to an older folks’ apartment building in Eldorado. She soon became the social director and kept them going out on bus rides to see the fall foliage in southern Indiana, etc. She also did serious ancestry work on the Hess family and Social Brethren Church.

Alvin, Dora, Alvin Jr and David are all buried in the Raleigh, Illinois Wolf Creek Cemetery.

My memories of Dad have impacted me greatly. His approach to us boys was based on plain and proven principles. He never had a written crisp set of rules, but I lived with him and perceived them to be:

Honor – respect others
Honesty – never lie
Hard work – plus do it well or stand aside and let somebody else do it well
Help your community and neighbors in need

Just as an example: Jim was sent on Farmall M to plow the Moore 40-acre field. It was on a hillside slope. Dad told me what direction to plow. I plowed it up and down the hill so I could go faster. Dad came home from politics and saw me and ran to me with his hands up! He preached to me about soil erosion and instructed me to write an essay to the Farm Bureau on Soil Erosion! I won the Farm Bureau $25 award for the best erosion essay of the year! Dad never said a thing. I learned a lot! I have now loved Dad and that farm for over 80 years!

Dad had a few simply spoken rules for us all to live by…There are 5 of us to eat, we should not waste anything (he came out of the Depression and WWII rations environment). You must eat what you put on your plate. Well one noon lunch, I did not eat all I put on my plate, and he said, “Mom put Jim’s lunch plate in the icebox.” Come dinner time, I sat down and was staring at my plate from lunch. Decided to show Dad, I sat through supper and did not eat again and said nothing. At the end of supper, dad said, “Mom put Jim’s plate in the ice box.” My brothers could not believe me. Richard said he bet Dad will win the “stand-off war.” Come breakfast the next day, there sat my previous day lunch leftovers plate. Vigorously I ate my leftovers and looked forward to my new day lunch where I took little and took more, only as needed a spoonful at a time. Dad was a good teacher also…like his father.

Dad and mom never had a set of conditions that they reviewed before they decided to whip one of us. Looking back at the 4 Hs listed earlier, I think those were used here as well. David never got a whipping that I can remember. I asked Richard about this and we re-created the events where a whipping by Dad happened. The list is 5 incidents long. Jim was involved in all 5 of them; Richard was only in 3 of them and David was not in any of them.

Jim learned how to run through the yard and jump up on woven fence by the old Magnolia tree and spring up in the air and catch a limb and flip over it and land in a crouched stance. Once cousin Donald Gene Bramlet stayed all night – and next morning Dad had to go to town and warned Jim to not do the tree trick with Donald Gene. We looked up the gravel road going to New Hope School and saw a dust storm from car coming down the road. We all concluded we only had time for one more jump. Donald Gene fell and really “busted up his elbow.” After the hospital trip for Donald Gene, Dad gave Jim and Richard a whipping. Richard said, “We earned it.” Donald Gene died with his elbow “busted up.”

Dad was constantly smoking his pipe – must have tasted or smelled good. The Rabbit Dock plant in the hot July wheat field looked just like Dad’s tobacco pouch stuff. Richard and Jim both had comic books from the dime store in town. We got the matches in the kitchen and hid behind the very tall corn crib with lots of corn and many shucks. We tamped the weed stuff down the tube of a rolled-up comic book and lit up and puffed hard. We were not settled down when mom yelled from the house, “come here boys” (needed something but can’t remember what). We, without thinking about it enough, dropped our comic books and ran to the house. We did what mom wanted done and then looked at the corn crib with flames and smoke rising skyward. Oh NO! Richard said, “We earned it!”

Richard and I were in the loft of Grandpa’s very high barn chasing an apparent hurt pigeon. Jim even climbed onto a rooftop attached inside rail to drop hay bales outside. As he was hand walking, the pigeon walked all the way out of the barn in the roof overhang…the old rail broke (unattached) and Jim fell to the ground. Jim was motionless – and did not know what happened for some time…was rushed to the hospital. Jim left the hospital with broken collar bone – never knew how many breaks, but I came out with iron slats from waist to upper neck and extended over arms from waist to elbow, with forearms hanging down vertically. I wore that outfit almost all summer. I did not know dad whipped Richard for being a par of this venture until we talked recently. I was super glad Richard was with me – he helped me to start breathing again down on the ground. In retrospect, I was lucky – Richard to help me breath again and moreover the ground was softer due to livestock being/moving around on the ground all the time.

Gates boys were walking ¾ miles to New Hope School one morning and Jim picked up a dead black snake and put it in the teacher’s lunch pail before school started. Lunch time started when teacher pulled up her lunch pail to her desktop and opened it. She screamed, pushed back her chair and fell down. It was not as funny as I thought it would be. I was the first to laugh. She immediately made me crawl into the open space under her desk where her chair fit. She made me stay there until school was out, then she walked me home to tell my folks. The she walked home to the house where she stayed during the school term. Dad read that as a “dishonor” to the teacher and whipped me. Richard said, “You earned it.”

We boys got a gift croquet game (knocking wooden balls through metal wickets with wooden mallets). Jim is about to win approaching the last wicket. Dad walks by and picked up my ball. I ask for it and he put his arm/hand out but then flips his hand over so I cannot get my ball…did not find this trick funny. So, I raised my arm back, with mallet in hand. He says, “Whoa! Do you mean if I don’t give you this ball that you will hit me with your mallet?” I said, Yes. Dad goes into the house with my ball and comes back out with the ball plus his razor strap. Mom comes out and tells him he is hurting Jim with that leather strap to which Dad replies, “I want Jim to remember this the rest of his life.” Dad took my action as dishonoring a parent. Richard said, “You Earned it.”

Through all this ancestry research, I observed that some ancestors do some things that grab your attention, because you too would like to do that…teach, politics, farm, etc. I know several Gates’ who like to fish. See Jacob William with a big catfish and a big smile. PHOTO Alvin Kenneth caught a Tri-State (Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky) record bass at Sahara Coal Company Lake that officially weighed 10 lbs 4 ozs. When he caught it, he believed/hoped it was a record-breaker, so he immediately (1) put it in a water bucket and (2) raced to town to have it weighed at Kurpo’s Meat Shop on a precise scale, (3) had Holiday’s Restaurant freeze it then Gaskin Funeral Home put it on dry ice and (4) shipped it to the Schwartz Studio to mount it behind glass enclosure. Richard still has this hanging upstairs on his wall in the sitting room.