The Little House That Jake Built

The Little House That Jake Built

Around 1927,  when my father, Edmund Gates, Jr., was eight years old, Jake Smith, the uncle of Mrs. Mary Goad, built a wooden house with the dimensions 14’ by 28’.  He constructed the little house on the west end of the 95-acre Gates farm near the Arkansas River. When recounting the initial construction of the Gates family home, Dad remembered Jake was a good builder except for one complaint that he heard from his parents. As Jake built their family’s little house, he chewed and spat tobacco juice all over the lumber! 

     Edmund Gates, Sr. and Mamie Tripp Gates in front of their little house. 

     Grandma has such a pleasant countenance. In the background, standing  

       on the porch are Ella, their eldest daughter, and Harry Bledsoe.  Ella is 
holding their daughter, Mary Beth

Jim Gates, my father’s youngest brother, recalled the little house’s relocation to its present site around 1934.  Both brothers remembered the moving of the house on timbers, but it got stuck in the sand. Their father let it set overnight. Then Harold Goad, around 28 years old, had a team of four big black horses that pulled it out of the sand ditch and transported it to the spot on which it sets today.

In the mid-1960s, Grandpa Gates, Edmund Gates, Sr., suffered a stroke. Up until this time, he and Grandma had no indoor plumbing. They used the water pump to the west of the house to pump water for their use.* The outdoor privy or outhouse used by Grandpa and Grandma and any of the guests was located to the southeast of the little house.

With Grandpa experiencing paralysis due to the stroke, Grandma decided it was time to update her home. She chose to add a bedroom and a bathroom onto the south side of the tiny two-room house. Plumbing the house to have running water and a stool were mandatory for her. Grandpa seemed to believe Herb and Jim and maybe their sisters were pushing her into the 20^th century. He told Dad, “They’re going to break her!”

His prediction did not come true. Grandma even added another room to the north of her kitchen that served as her laundry room following Grandpa’s death in 1966. Upon her death in 1988, she was debt-free with a substantial savings account. Let’s just say, Grandma could manage life and money on her own quite well.

*Go to this link to view a photo of the pump:  http://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2014/08/remembering-steven-glenn-gates.html

Front: Grandma Gates (Mamie Tripp Gates), Mamie Gates Tice, Julia Gates
                Newland, Martha Gates Johnston, Ella Gates Bledsoe, Mary Gates Roberts,
                  Edmund Gates, Jr. Back: Edmund Gates, Sr., Jim Gates, Jess Gates, Herb Gates
  My grandparents are standing on the west side of the little house with the
   nine children who grew to adulthood. All nine were raised in the two-room 
house and the bunk house!