The August Birthdays of My Grandmothers

Our maternal grandparents - Calvin Callcayah and
Gladys Smith with Angie, my sister, and me.

          With Grandma Smith's birthday being last Thursday, August 11, and Grandma Gates' birthday upcoming on Tuesday, August 16, this week seemed the perfect time to recognize two women who gave so much of themselves to those they loved. Brenda Gates provided the last three photos of this blog post. Thank you so much, Brenda!

        On August 11, 1900, Gladys Vivian Rainey was born in a tent in the fledgling town of Shawnee in Oklahoma Territory to her parents, William Marion and Mary Rosetta Rainey. She lived to be 82 years old. She taught herself to read music and play the family’s old pump organ after working in the hot fields.

My maternal grandma attended the old Woodland school and “took” the eighth grade several times after the school ceased giving a high school diploma. She then trained for one summer at Oklahoma A & M, receiving certification as a schoolteacher but never taught. The school she was offered had a reputation of students beating up teachers!

            Grandma found her true passion when she trained at the Fairfax Hospital in 1922-1923 as a nurse. Even though she left her nursing training to marry Grandpa, Calvin Callcayah Smith, the love of nursing never left her. The need for health care in the Great Depression in the Bend demanded she resume her nursing. At age 7, my mother learned to cook as Grandma went into service as a volunteer nurse to her neighbors. Often Dr. Spaulding from Ralston would stop and pick her up on his way to a house call in the Bend. Grandma accepted the mission of providing free healthcare to her community members. She lived by 3 John 2 as she went about caring for the ailing. She sought to do all within her power to restore them to health and even felt a greater compulsion to make sure each patient had a prosperous soul by having a relationship with Jesus.

Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.  3 John 2

Mamie Irene Tripp entered the world on August 16, 1895, in Cowley County, Kansas to Nettie Ann Venator Tripp and Rufus Tripp. Grandma lived to be 92 years old, even though her much-loved father died when Grandma was only five years old. Shortly after his death, her mother married Robert Black who proved to be a loving father to her and her sisters.

Grandma completed her education through eighth grade at the Belford Grade School, which is a portion of Greg and Vonda Goad’s home. By age 16, Grandma had married my grandfather, who many thought was a confirmed bachelor. He handled all their financial business, and Grandma related to me in her last months, “He did all the banking business. I still get so nervous when I go into the bank in Fairfax.” Yet Grandma proved to be a stellar money manager.

Grandma Mamie Gates and Ella, her oldest 
daughter

        Grandma, a sensitive woman, according to Aunt Ella Gates Bledsoe, most enjoyed drawing and making music. However, she spent most of her life having twelve children, raising nine of them to adulthood, and cherishing each of them for their own uniqueness. 

Even though Grandma was tenderhearted and artistic, her strong character was revealed in this early day story my father, Edmund Gates, Jr., related to me about the time before his birth when his mother set his dad straight. 

Mary, the second born daughter, and Grandma
Mamie Gates

According to Dad, my grandpa, Edmund Gates, Sr., regularly had liquor shipped to him from Kansas City. Grandpa was a proud Kansan, having been born there. 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 and Mary Gates on Fancy  - much as they looked when riding to Woodland
 School in the early 1920s. To read another blog post about Fancy go to:
https://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2015/02/no-helicopter-parenting-here.html

As I reflect on women who raised children in the early 20^th century, many like my paternal grandma raised their children with Biblical principles. Even though she experienced the hardship of raising children during the Great Depression, coupled with the loss of three sons, she held to her principles. 

The scripture has numerous verses about drunkenness. Grandma did not want drunkenness exhibited before her or her children. She knew abuse, destruction, and irresponsible behavior resulting in harm and sorrow could ruin her home and family.

What sorrow for those who are heroes at drinking wine and boast about all the alcohol they can hold.   Isaiah 5:22

What a blessing to descend from women like these two!