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. 

Grandma's Temper and the Turkey

                My grandma, Gladys Vivian Rainey Smith, experienced a radical change, following her father’s death, when she made a commitment to Jesus at age 30. Frequently, I heard her relate the incident that she viewed as the “litmus test” proving she had a genuine spiritual encounter amid her grief.

                During the wheat harvest, following her conversion, my grandparents had cut their wheat crop and “bundled” it. An unsaved neighbor had come to help them shock their wheat on Sunday. (My mother explained shocking as setting or stacking the cut ends of the several bundles together so the wheat heads were up and erect.) Grandma disliked laboring in the field on the Lord's Day, but what could she do? In those depression days, neighbors had to help each other. Sunday was the day their friend and neighbor could be there to help them, so she would just have to miss church. 

                Grandpa busily worked in another area of the field. Just as Grandma and their neighbor resumed the back-breaking task of shocking wheat that Sunday morning, Ada Forrest’s flock of turkeys invaded the wheat field. The unwelcome birds swarmed the already shocked wheat, devouring the precious heads of wheat, ruining and wrecking my grandparents' hard work! The unsaved neighbor immediately huffed, “Boy, I wouldn’t let those Forrest turkeys do this to my crop!” 

Ada Sparks Forrest. This photograph
was in my grandmother's photo album.
She was my mother's teacher in the 
early grades.

                Those words turned up the heat of my hardworking grandma’s anger. She couldn’t believe this destruction was occurring to their winter feed! Ada knew what those turkeys of hers could do to a wheat crop. How could she just let them roam into her neighbors' wheat field?

                On the heels of that thought, with all the vengeance of anger propelling her, Grandma grabbed the closest offending turkey, wrung its neck, and threw it into the air with all her might. As soon as the lifeless bird fell to the ground, Grandma's heart stopped as she realized the terrible thing she had done! She had allowed her rage to fuel her temper's explosion, resulting in a serious infraction against her friend, Ada.

                Grandma began stewing inside, recognizing she must let Ada know what she had done. Boy, she knew Ada would be mad. During the Great Depression, every  family in the Big Bend worked from sunup to sundown, in harsh conditions, with back-breaking labor, to put food on the table. As a young Christian, Grandma prayed the best way she knew that night for humility and strength to deal with this self-created catastrophe over Ada’s turkey.

                The next day with a heart full of trepidation and regret, Grandma trudged to Ada’s house. Upon glimpsing Ada, her friend, Grandma blurted out, “I am so sorry I killed one of your turkeys yesterday.”

                With open arms, Ada replied instantly, “I shouldn’t have let those turkeys get over on you.” At that point, Grandma realized she was the recipient of God’s forgiveness and her friend’s, too. Grandma often recalled learning, through that early spiritual crisis, the importance of listening to the quiet impression of the Holy Spirit instead of the voices of those around us, especially those who are not followers of Jesus.

                As a preteen, I remember when Ada and her husband returned to the Bend, my grandparents were exuberant over their visit. In spite of the rampage in the wheat field during the 1930s, the godly resolution of it by Grandma and Ada Forrest forged a friendship that lasted until Ada’s death in 1977.          

A Goal for 2016

As a caregiver for Dad, in the early days, I found myself saying to people with needs, "Well at least I can pray for you." After a year or so, I realized the prayer was the best thing I could do for someone, whatever the difficulty might be. This was originally written in 2014, obviously prior to my father's death, but when I found it in my files, it reflected my heart's desire for 2016.

Praying Instead of Sleeping

And when He rose up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, He found them sleeping for sorrow, And said unto them, “Why sleep ye? Rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.”  Luke 22:45-46

When listening to Dr. Ted Kersch, the pastor of South Tulsa Baptist Church, preach a sermon on the account of Jesus’ prayer in the garden as recorded in Luke 22, I was struck by a phrase in verse 45 in that same passage. The phrase “sleeping for sorrow” leaped from the page of the Bible I was using. Other translations use the word “grief”, “anguish”, or “sadness” in this phrase.

Immediately, this verse brought to mind an incident in my own life from a couple of weeks earlier. I assisted my mother in caring for my father, looking after his small herd of cattle, and various other responsibilities on the little farm. That morning by 9 a.m. after several minor catastrophes, I heard coming from my mouth, “I am so depressed I just want to lie down and go to sleep.” Obviously, leaving my 89-year-old mother to shoulder the care of my 95-year-old father, with multiple issues because of his strokes,was inconceivable. I breathed a prayer asking for strength for the day, for wisdom, and for eyes to stay focused on Him and His plan for the day.

Jesus was warning the disciples against this improper focus in Luke 22:45. Jesus knew the difficulties that lay ahead for Him and His followers. That was the reason for the prayer. He was modeling the correct way to handle calamity and impending problems – Pray. He was warning them that failure to pray would lead to succumbing to the temptation to give in to our fears, feelings of despair, complaining, doubt, loss of courage, and inevitably, turning away from Him.

Father, give me a heart to stay in an attitude of prayer, even subconsciously, communing with You. Lead me to focus on You and avoid fixating on the difficulties and troubles that distress me. Give me an awareness that no situation surprises You, and that You will bring good out of the upheavals and struggles I encounter. Your plan is to show Your faithfulness and power in whatever hardship occurs in my life.

A plaster paris replica of praying hands
that I painted in Vacation Bible School
 in the 1960s.