Gates, Hoyt

GATES

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 6/23/2021 at 10:49:23

Source: History of Warren County, Iowa, by Gerard Schultz and Don L. Berry, The Record and Tribune Co., Indianola, Iowa, 1953, p.302

HOYT GATES
Hoyt Gates has lived 83 years in Warren County. The majority of those years were spent on the farm which was purchased by his father from the government in 1853 and which he now owns. His interests outside of farming have been Republican politics, the Methodist church and general rural development.
His father, Cyrus Gates, came to Warren County in 1852 from Mt. Vernon, Ohio. He came by boat down the Ohio river, up the Mississippi river and the Des Moines to the fork of the Raccoon river. On the trip he brought with him his tool chest containing handmade carpenter tools with which he plied his trade as he traveled to his destination in Iowa. Fourteen miles south of the river fork he bought 200 acres of land from the government for $1.25 an acre.
In 1855 he married Mary Ann Mona-smith who had migrated to Polk county from Pennsylvania. Gates, Lockridge, Perkins, Spencer, Burkhead, Crow and Burlingame were family names that organized the Linn Grove Methodist Church in 1855. Records of the minutes of the early church were kept by Cyrus Gates. The first meetingswere held in the log schoolhouse which stood on the site of the present Linn Grove cemetery in Linn township. In 1867 a frame church building was erected about a quarter of a mile southwest of the cemetery in Jefferson Township. In 1903 a new building was erected at the same location. Continuous services have been held from the time of its organization to the present. Cyrus Gates died in 1874 as result of an accident.
Hoyt Gates, the fourth son of Cyrus Gates and Mary Ann Monasmith, was born in 1869 in a new frame house which had replaced the log cabin on the farm. Hoyt's five children were later born in the same house. On July 24, 1892, Hoyt married Orilla Perkins, daughter of Adam Huffman Perkins and Mary Jane Lockridge, lifelong residents of Warren County. A. H. Perkins was a farmer, schoolteacher and justice of the peace in Jefferson township for many years.
Mary Jane Lockridge, born March 9, 1853, was the daughter of Samuel Lockridge and Mary Meeks who migrated from West Virginia to Ohio and on to Iowa (Jefferson Township) in a covered wagon when daughter Mary Jane was three months old. She lived in Jefferson Township until her death July 16, 1942, at the age of 89 years. During her lifetime she saw the rutted covered wagon trails give way to smooth surfaced paved highways on which she drove her own Model T Ford for many years. In 1873 she bought the first home sewing machine in the community for $75 from a peddler who drove the countryside during the nineteenth century. The machine fed the cloth from the left instead of the front as in the sewing machines of today. The machine is now the property of the Iowa Historical society in Des Moines.
Hoyt and his wife continued the work of developing the community that had begun with their parents and were active on the farm until 1942 when they retired and moved to their present home in Norwalk. Mr. Gates is a member of the Norwalk Masonic lodge, Order of Eastern Star and Scottish Rite Consistory of Des Moines. Mr. and Mrs. Gates are the parents of five children: Roena, born May 30, 1893, wife of Harley J. Clement of Des Moines, received her bachelor of arts degree from Drake university and her master of arts degree from Iowa State college. She has taught arts and crafts in the Des Moines public schools for the past 33 years. Merle, born July 24, 1895, married Asel G. Prather, and they had four sons. Richard G. lost his life in an airplane accident while piloting a navy plane March 22, 1946. Jack G. has completed four years of service with the U. S. navy. Edwin P. is attending Osceola high school. Donald died in infancy. Mamie, born Sept. 19, 1897, married Ray E. Zarley of Johnston, Iowa, and they have six children: Margaret Rae (Mrs. Grant Voorhees); Guy Gates Zarley of Des Moines; Rillabelle (Mrs. Verne Dvorak) of Decatur, Ill.; Robert and Donald, students of Drake university; Gerald, in Johnston high school. Guy and Robert served in the U. S. navy during World War II. Ethel Jane, born Feb. 2, 1901, graduated from Simpson college in 1924. She married Arthur Dinwiddie of Bedford and they have two children. Martha Jane is attending Simpson college and Charles A. is a sophomore student at the University of Iowa.
Kermit Hoyt, born June 3, 1903, graduated from Simpson college in 1925, received the degree of doctor of medicine from the State University of Iowa and was commissioned first lieutenant in the U. S. army medical corps in July, 1930. In 1949 he received his master's degree in hospital administration from the University of California at Berkeley. He married Phyllis Davis of Denver, Colo., and they are the parents of four children: Alice Jane, Kermit Hoyt Jr., Davis Fessendan and Jeremy Hunt. Kermit has served continuously in the army for 22 years and with rank of colonel he is now serving as commanding officer and chief surgeon of 3rd army hospital at Ft. Jackson, S. C. He is a member of American Medical association, Public Health association, Military Surgeons and American College of Hospital administrators. He was surgeon of the 24th infantry in 1941 and 1942 and with his family was stationed at Schofield barracks, Honolulu, T. H., at the time of the attack of Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941. From 1943 to 1945 Col. Gates was deputy to the surgeon of the mid-Pacific theater with headquarters in Hawaii. In 1945 he was returned to the United States and stationed at the Presido, San Francisco. In 1950 he was sent to his present command at Ft. Jackson. He maintains his legal residence at Norwalk and votes in Warren County. He is a member of Norwalk Masonic lodge and the Shrine at Honolulu, T. H.[Territory of Hawaii, since Hawaii became a state in 1959]