Carl Bates obituary

A ‘favorite daughter’ shares ‘Memoirs of Carl Bates’

By Rhonda Westfall

Note: This is the first of a multi-part series on the life and times of a well-known Clinton County native, Carl Bates. He lived in the Elsie area for many years of his life, and is perhaps best remembered for the 20 years he served as Superintendent of the Clinton County Intermediate School District, retiring in 1969.

These ‘Memoirs’ are presented in his own words, written in his latter years – and, as he says at the conclusion, retyped and appreciated by his "favorite and oldest daughter," Dorothy (Bates Bakita)." The copy and photographs are provided courtesy of Dorothy Bakita – who herself served for many years as a teacher at St. Johns Public Schools.

Memoirs of Carl Bates: Part I

As I sit here in the solitude of a lonely household, located on the banks of Higgins Lake, I am rapidly approaching that birthday which will mark four score years on this earth. I am in receipt of about the third or fourth request from my favorite daughter to write something of my past that would enlarge her knowledge of what she has inherited as a heritage.

I have given the matter some thought and I have arrived at the conclusion that in as much as I was born in 1903 and she was born in 1939, that there is about one-half of my life (40 years) that she does not know much about - and further, that she does have a right to know about. It is with this thought in mind that I have decided to write about my first 40 years, so that she might better understand the philosophies and actions of her dad as she knew him in the last 40 years.

I have given the matter some thought and have decided that I would write this paper in three parts, or attempt to.

(1) A bit of my family heritage, as I remember it.

(2) A chronological history of the major events in my life, briefly told.

(3) A series of unrelated events that happened in my life, while going through the items listed under item two.

Who knows what will really come out while trying to follow this format?

It should be remembered that I spent an abnormal amount of years, calling and feeling that Elsie was my home. Five years to get through high school, two years at Mt. Pleasant College, two years coaching at Breckenridge and two years coaching at Elsie. I think my Mother was getting a little concerned that she had a bachelor on her hands. I married March 11, 1930, nearly 27 years old.

In retrospect, I guess that as I start to bare my past, I do so without any great pride or shame, and at this point, let the record show that I have no intentions of baring my past, clear to the nudity situation. I consider that I have had a good life, with a lot of good breaks, and certainly blessed with good health.

Part One

I was born Nov, 29, 1903, on the Meridian Road, one mile east and one and one-half miles north of Elsie, Michigan. I inherited one brother, four and one-half years older than myself. Seldom has there been anyone born into this world with more ambitious parents than I had. My father, George, finished three years in grade school and went to work by the month on the Miles Simpson farm, just north of Bannister, for $12 per month, and continued hard work until he reached the age of 90 years. He died at age 92.

My dad was the oldest in a family of four children. There was George, Van, Harlow, and sister, Carrie, who married Ed Albaugh. They all settled on farms near the original Dave Bates homestead about five miles from Elsie on the Meridian Road. When I was about 8 years old, my parents sold their 24-acre farm and bought a 30-acre farm on the Ridge Road, two miles north of Elsie and one-half mile east. This had a nice mortgage that was going to prove difficult to remove in the following years.

Carl in Elsie ca. 1912

As a very small boy, I used to walk down to Uncle Van’s house and stay all night with them; they had no children at the time. Later, I established a good rapport with Uncle Harlow; went hunting with him many times. I remember once we were hunting down in the State lands and Harlow was going through some very thick tag alders near me. I heard him shoot, waited for him to come out and when he arrived he was carrying a partridge by the foot. I said, "You got him!"

He replied, "Yes, and I am not very proud of it either."

I asked why.

Harlow said, "I saw him running on the ground up through that brush and shot him there, not in the air."

I recollect that Harlow got arrested once for hunting out of season, or without a license, had to go to Ithaca and pay a fine of about $25. Later, in discussing it with him, he mentioned that the warden drove a new green Chevrolet sedan, in case I ever noticed it around. I said, "Let’s see, Harlow, you made a little payment on that car didn’t you?"

He quickly replied, "Yes, but don’t forget he has to have gasoline for it, too."

I also remember some early day hunting trips with my dad. He used to hitch up a horse, or sometimes two, put some hay on the wagon and take our dinners and go down in the State Lands. (Don’t know who owned them at the time.) Dad would go to someone he knew, and put the horse in their barn and we would go rabbit hunting. Remember once I got a shot at a rabbit with my air gun that dad was running around for me.

Dad promised me a 22 when I was 10 years old and he delivered that 22 when I was 9 years old. I never forgot that he lived up to his promise. I recollect I got my first shotgun when I was 13 years old. That shotgun was a single barrel, 20 gauge, Iver Johnson gun that cost $5.25 from Sears Roebuck. The longest week that I ever endured was from the time that gun was ordered until it arrived in Elsie. Did not wait for the mailman to deliver it the next day, but picked it up at the Post Office. In the next few years, I was to have a lot of guns, trading one for another and usually paying a little difference to upgrade my hunting equipment.

My mother was a good looking, hard working woman - Alta Pearce Bates. My mother was an excellent cook. She always maintained a good bountiful garden; always had a flock of chickens that furnished grocery money, eggs to eat, and many chicken dinners. When winter came, I expect our standard preparations would not be equaled in the state today - 200 quarts of canned food, 400 pounds of sugar, about the same poundage in flour. These were in 25 pound sacks, that we had taken the wheat to Parshelburg to get ground into flour.

We always butchered a beef and as many hogs as it took to winter us over. We always had to dispose of surplus potatoes, apples, carrots, cabbages, etc. in the spring. We could have a chicken dinner anytime someone suggested it. I was in college before I recognized any significance to a steak dinner. I only had to mention it in my young days at home, as mother used to welcome ideas as to what someone wanted for a meal.

I recollect one day, mother stepped out the back door and said, "George, there is going to be a bakery in Elsie. They are going to sell bread for ten cents a loaf, but I can bake it cheaper than that."

I would rank my mother as an excellent seamstress; she made some fancy works that I would think ranked as masterpieces. She made many of our clothes in early days. My mother was also very adept at applying Dad’s razor strap on my rear end, whenever she thought the occasion demanded it. For years, every fall, Mother surveyed all of our possible needs in the clothes dept., and made out a huge order to Sears Roebuck for clothes, gloves, mittens, boots, socks, the whole works for all members of the family.

Mother did not take kindly to crop failures and losses that sometimes occurred and I am sure that she wished for something better than farming for her two boys. I recollect that when my brother was in Alma College, the Republic Truck Plant was going strong and I heard Mother proposition Dad a few times to sell the farm and move to Alma. Gerald could stay at home, Dad could get a job, probably at the truck plant, and she would find something - Dad never got very enthused. Then I remember that her brother, Elwin, moved to Arkansas and wrote rosy letters back, and Mother was ready to pull up stakes and go down there. Again Dad did not buy.

This generation found their recreation by neighbor visits, Sunday dinners, square dances at people’s houses, and going to town every Saturday night to trade butter, eggs, any fruit in season for grocery staples, and to visit with others on the street. Saturday night in the summertime was a social event not to be missed. In those days, a local band played on the street and the small kids did the town on the run. Most of us had a nickel to spend - choice of a bag of popcorn, bottle of pop, ice cream cone, bulk candy or a choice of penny candies, or peanuts.

I am not sure that I can name all of Mother’s brothers and sisters, but I will try. There was George, Tom, and Elwin, and then there was Emma, Lilly, Bertha, and my mother, Alta Pearce, probably I have left out some. I think one died at an early age, besides the ones I have mentioned. For a few years when I was very young, we used to go to Grandmother Pearce’s house for Christmas and as I remember, others of the family that lived close enough were there too. The old homestead was a mile and a half south of Chapin.

I knew my Granddad Pearce as a retired farmer living in a new house built on the old farm, for their retirement. I am sure that at one time in his early days he taught a rural school, located between Chapin and Oakley. I have no idea what his educational background was. My guess is that he had an eighth-grade diploma. As I knew him in his latter days, he liked nothing better than to discuss the Bible with someone. Perhaps I should have said argue with someone about the Bible contents. My brother, Gerald, at times would fill in for want of someone better qualified. do believe that he was pretty well qualified to talk about the Bible contents.

My other Grandfather Bates was quite a different sort. I knew David Bates as a retired farmer living in Elsie, and he spent some years in his last days as a section hand for the Ann Arbor Railroad working out of Elsie. I have heard that when David Bates was a farmer, he capitalized on a knowledge of business cycles. Case in point - when sheep were cheap, he bought sheep and sold his cattle if they were high priced at the time.

In due time, if sheep were up in price, he sold his sheep, and went into the cattle business again or whatever was cheap at the time. Dave was a strong-minded individual with definite ideas about things. In his latter years, he read the old Detroit Journal faithfully everyday; he knew our national finances as accurately as the information was available to him. I am sure that he thought our nation was on a financial disaster course (as his grandson thinks today).

Dave did not think much of wasting money on higher education. I recollect that when my brother Gerald returned from a year in college, Dave said, "Now Gerald, you have been to college, tell me just what is electricity?"

Gerald admitted defeat, and Dave knew again that he was right all the time about college being a waste of time and money.

Now there is my brother Gerald, 4 1/2 years older than I am. I am not very well qualified to make this remark, but I will risk it anyway. I think that my brother Gerald and I were as direct opposites as brothers could be. Will attempt to qualify that remark. Gerald took pride in being dressed up when he attended high school. I can still remember the old button colloid collars that buttoned to his shirts; the rest of the attire blended in very nicely. When I attended High School, anything that covered my body was just fine, appearance was not to be considered.

I don’t believe that my brother ever participated in a high school ball game. I quit school in the tenth grade and only went back the next year to play ball. Finally, got my high school diploma as a fringe benefit. I think my brother thought high school was a place to study and learn a few things.

I thought high school was a place that one had to put in their time if you wanted to play on their ball teams; never took a book home in my life to study, and only read them enough in school to keep off the flunking list. Never would have read an extra chapter to get a grade of B, instead of a C. A grade of C was plenty good enough for me. In college, the English Department at one time nearly kept me from being a college graduate, and my brother Gerald majored in English and later made it his life’s work with abilities along that line. It occurs to me at this time, here I sit trying to write this thing, and there he sits with his ability, not writing.

I am under the impression that very few people have a larger vocabulary than brother Gerald, further he has the disposition to be very thorough in whatever he undertakes. I would like to see him take a comprehensive examination in competition with college professors that are teaching the history of the Civil War. I think his vocabulary wins him many arguments. It quickly becomes evident to his advisory that he may have the facts, but not the ability to out-talk Gerald. So Gerald apparently wins the argument, or thinks so.

The four and a half years difference between our ages and the fact that he enlisted in the Army in 1917, I believe that he was 17 years old at the time, kept us from having a lot of boyhood experiences together. We did have some hunting, fishing, working, etc. together. May I also mention at this time, that we had a few disagreements, some of which resulted in "fisticuffs." I guess in retrospect, that this might have led to my loosing all fear of getting whipped in a fight. I was used to it. Rest my case - for now.

I am a little uncertain about some exact dates now. I think my brother was graduated from High School in 1917. World War I was on, his birthday is June 20, and I know that he had two birthdays while in France. Brother Gerald received one of those famous "Dear John" letters while over there.

After the war was over, brother returned and received his honorable discharge and has stated that upon receiving it, he held it up in front of him and kissed it. Thereafter, I heard him state that he would not take a million dollars for his experience, nor do it over again for a million dollars.