Remembering Grandma Gates on Her 120th Birthday

When Grandma Gates Put Her Foot Down

Mamie Irene Tripp Gates on her 85th birthday. Her use of
 the sunbonnet to protect her face from the sun each time she
went outside paid off. Her skin looked terrific for her age.

                Today, August 16, marks the 120^th birthday of my paternal grandma, Mamie Irene Tripp Gates. Grandma experienced loss early in her life, at age five, when her father died. (For more about her father’s  death, see the blog posted on September 8, 2013, entitled One of the Hardest Things for a Little Girl to Do.) Her oldest and youngest sons died in infancy. A teenage son was tragically struck by lightning and killed on his birthday. Just a couple of months before her own death, she buried her dearly loved son, Herbert. I never heard her lament or complain once about her lot in life.   

Grandma lived in the present. She preferred discussing her garden or fruit trees over reminiscing over "those old stories" that Grandpa loved to recount.

                Grandma espoused strong principles for living. Dad said he never heard her say a bad word - not a vulgar word or profane expression. Dad usually contrasted that Grandpa cussed and kicked at the boys when they needed correction.
                Within a year before her death, I visited with her at times when it was only she and I. During our visits, she clarified her opinion on relationships, commitment, and marriage. Grandma valued high principles of morality and marriage. She made a special effort to attend as many weddings of her grandchildren as she could. Her presence esteemed and applauded their commitment to marriage.

She worked at her own marriage. Even though Grandma loved to sing and make  music, as well as draw, once she was married, she devoted her life to her husband and children. During the Great Depression, she raised gardens, canned the produce she grew, and worked to maintain a loving home for her family, even though it required immense sacrifice on her behalf. Not to mention that she lived with a “Gates” and we all know that means “hardheaded” or at least – “determined.”

She told me how “Mr. Gates” always did all the banking business. (Incidentally, I only heard her refer to Grandpa as “Papa” or “Mr. Gates.”) She said, "Bernadean, to this day I get nervous whenever I have to go into the bank at Fairfax." The irony was that she proved to be a phenomenally successful businesswoman when she had to make financial decisions herself after Grandpa’s death.

All of this background makes this following account even more powerful. My father, Edmund Gates, Jr., related this early day story to me about the time before his birth when his mother set his dad straight.

According to Dad, my grandpa, Edmund Gates, Sr., regularly had liquor shipped to him from Kansas City. Grandpa was a proud Kansan, feeling about Kansas much the way many Texans hold the Lone Star State in their hearts. One evening he had consumed some of his shipped “potent potable.” Dad related that he was told (probably by Grandma) that Grandpa came into the little two-room house “staggering drunk.” Grandma immediately told him,“You’re not going to do this again. I won’t stay and have you staggering and falling down over these two little girls.” The two little girls playing on the kitchen floor oblivious to their father’s condition were Ella and Mary, the two oldest daughters of my grandparents. To Dad’s knowledge, that was the last time Grandpa “threw a big drunk.”

Ella Gates Bledsoe and Mary Gates Roberts, the two little girls all grown up.

All of Grandma’s children were spared growing up in a household with alcohol being used and abused. Those of us who are her grandchildren reaped the benefits of our grandmother "putting her foot down," even though she was only in her twenties.

It is my prayer that her offspring from the oldest to the youngest would adopt her principles for living their lives. We, as individuals, would benefit. Our relationships, our families, and our communities would profit and be better for following Grandma’s way. On some issues though, we might have to “put our foot down.”