The 75th Birthday of John Francis Gates

Grandma’s Prettiest Baby

                In the January 30, 1941 issue of The Fairfax Chief, Ida Gilliland, the Chief's correspondent for the Woodland district in the Big Bend, wrote in her column:

Mr. and Mrs. Ed Gates announce the arrival of a new son at their home Sunday, January 19 to whom they have given the name John Francis.

                Little Johnny, as he came to be called by his family, would be the last baby born to my grandparents. My eldest aunt, Ella, had already married. Aunt Mary had moved to Oklahoma City to work. My father, Edmund Gates Jr., at age 21, still lived at home and helped on the farm. The other children at home were: Jess-age 17, Martha-age 15, Herbert-age 12, Jim- age 9, Julia-age 7, and Mamie- age 2.

                Soon the family’s precious new baby exhibited symptoms belying a healthy infant. One of the symptoms mentioned by my father about his baby brother was inconsolable crying. Shortly after his birth, "spots" appeared on his tiny body. 
                Years later Grandma would tell Aunt Mamie Marie that she wasn't feeling good in 1940 so she went to the doctor and let him know she thought she might be pregnant. He disagreed and gave her a hormone shot. Aunt Martha and Aunt Mamie Marie recalled that Grandma had influenza. Then after Little Johnny's birth when his condition worsened, the medical diagnosis of the day indicated Grandma’s sickness as the cause for the critically ill little one.

                My father and I wrote of Little Johnny’s illness in his World War II experiences as documented in Okie Over Europe. Dad transported Grandma and the baby to Ponca City to be treated by Dr. C.W. Arrendell, a  well-respected pediatrician. Dad was the family's designated driver of the 1937 International pickup (bought used around 1939) since Grandpa did not try to drive due to his hearing impairment. Just months before the bombing of Pearl Harbor and Dad's subsequent enlistment in military service, my father faced the severe illness of his youngest brother and being forced to admit his helplessness to ease the tiny baby's pain or assure his mother of a positive outcome. Grandma told Aunt Mamie Marie of her dislike of the hospital in Ponca City. The personnel never offered her a chair during his treatments. So Grandma just stood by her suffering baby's bedside throughout the ordeal of each treatment.

                Gladys Rainey Smith, my maternal grandmother, was The Fairfax Chief correspondent for the Belford community. In one of her news columns, she mentioned Mr. and Mrs. Carl Crowder, the teachers at the Belford Grade School, had visited in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Ed Gates. (Carl Crowder was a brother of the longtime Fairfax grade school principal, Marlin Crowder.) Grandma Gladys wrote “the baby is only slightly improved following a 3-month illness. The child has a blood disease that has caused much concern among the doctors.”

                The next issue of The Fairfax Chief reported the death of Johnny Gates both in the Belford and Woodland news columns. My maternal grandmother mentioned that he “received three blood transfusions in Ponca City in an effort to save his life.”

John Francis Gates and his sister, Mamie Marie. This is the only
photograph I have seen of the little one that Grandma described as
her "prettiest baby" according to Uncle Jim Gates. Mamie Marie 
said Grandma described his eye color as "Dark blue - They looked
 navy." Standing by his little iron bed after he had died in their home
is the only memory that Mamie Marie has of her baby brother. She 
was only two years old at the time of his death.

                The service for the tiniest Gates child was at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, August 20, at the Pentecostal Church of God on the western side of the Bend with Charley Buxbaum preaching the service.

                That August morning the Gates family rode behind the hearse bearing a small coffin once again. Ed and Mamie Gates were burying their youngest son. Almost 27 years earlier, with crushed hearts, they had traveled the same country road to the Pixley Cemetery with the little body of their oldest son.  The account of his death can be accessed at: http://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2014/09/robert-bernard-gates.html

                Only six years early, the distraught family stood by the open grave of their 14-year-old son, Fredrick Daniel, killed suddenly by a deadly lightning strike on his 14^th birthday. What soul-numbing sorrow assaulted and tore my grandmother’s loving, tender heart through the deaths of her three precious sons! Yet I never once heard her say, “Why me?” Nothing about her demeanor indicated she dwelt on how her cherished babies were wrenched from her arms by the icy, cruel hand of death.

                Grandma’s resiliency provides a model for all of us. Every human being experiences loss in one form or another. As I reflected on this baby boy’s death, a passage in the Old Testament of the Bible kept coming to my mind. I pondered as to whether this account was read or mentioned at the August funeral.

                In 2 Samuel 12:22, King David had fasted and prayed for the healing of his little son, but the boy died. David responded to his death by saying, “Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”

My father related that my grandparents, following Fredrick’s death in 1935, made professions of faith or commitments to follow Jesus. Dad made this statement in one of our family story discussions, "He (Grandpa Gates) and Mama became Christians as a result of our family’s tragedy.  Even though we had no car, they tried to attend the Pentecost Holiness Church that was located on the northwest corner of what is now Carl Goad’s property."

The tombstone of John Francis Gates at Pixley Cemetery as shown on findagrave.com
Leukemia in infancy continues to be rare - only around 160 cases yearly in the
United States, however the survival rate remains only a little over 50% due to
the difficulty in correctly diagnosing until the disease has aggressively
progressed past the possibility for  successful treatment .

Like King David, Grandma and Grandpa knew they would see their precious Little Johnny again because of the hope they had in Jesus.