Gates, George Augustus 1851-1912

GATES

Posted By: Marilyn Holmes (email)
Date: 12/14/2012 at 11:23:46

Funeral Announcements: Services at 9:00 o'clock
Monday morning in the college chapel and at 2:30
o'clock in the afternoon in the Congregational church
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A life which left a lasting impress upon the town which he helped to build up and the college which he loved, was ended last Tuesday night when Dr. George A. Gates, "Prexy" Gates as his students and graduates loved to call him, died at Winter Park, Florida. He had been taken south in the hope that he might recover from the nervous breakdown from which, for months, he had been suffering. President Gates went some months ago from Nashville, Tenn., where he had been president of Fisk university, to his old home in Glover, Vt., and from there, as winter began to approach, he and Mrs. Gates went together to Florida. On the way they stopped in New York to consult a specialist, who gave them the cheering word that Dr. Gates seemed to have turned the corner of the long road and to be headed back to health and strength. Only a few days more and the strong, virile, helpful life was at an end.

A telegram yesterday stated that the body will be brought to Grinnell for burial and another this morning made it possible to set the time for next Monday. At 9 o'clock services will be held at Herrick chapel and at 2:30 o'clock in the afternoon in the Congregational church. Interment will be in Hazelwood cemetery beside the little daughter who was buried there years ago. One son, Stanley, who is in business in Chicago, has gone to Florida to join his mother and will accompany her here. The other son, Donald, is a student in the college.

It is fitting that President Gates should be brought to Grinnell for the last long slumber, for in Grinnell he lived the strongest years of his life and the college bears ineradicably the stamp of his personality. He came to Grinnell as its president at the opening of the college year of 1887. He was happy in his work and brought to it a strong, ennobling personality. Under his charge the college experienced a normal and healthy growth until his resignation, which was announced in the spring of 1900 and became effective the next October. For a short time thereafter, President Gates held the pastorate of a church in Cheyenne, Wyoming and from there went to Pomona, California, to assume the presidency fo Pomona College, the Grinnell of that state. From Pomona he went to Nashville, Tenn., to take the presidency of Fisk university and here he was doing a great work until he passed through a railroad wreck early last spring. From that time the beginning of his nervous disorder was evident and now the end has come.

President Gates' last visit to Grinnell was at the Commencement of 1910, when he came to keep the covenant he had made with the class of 1900 to meet with them on the tenth anniversary of their graduation. At that time he seemed his strong, purposeful, optimistic self and the news of his breakdown was a very great shock to all who knew him.

All Grinnell, town and college, joins in heartfelt sorrow for the good life which has ended, and extends sympathy to the gracious lady, his wife, and to the two sons, in this great loss.
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Find A Grave Memorial #92280061