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My Indian Grandmother
My Grandmother, Bessie (also known as Bettie) Ross Miller Bates Wolf, was born June 19, 1889 in Locust Grove, Oklahoma. Her father was George Lowery Ross, and her mother was Ruth Belle Springston Ross Evans. Grandmother had an older brother, Commodore Wade Ross, and two half-brothers, Albert Lee Evans and Henry Evans, along with a half-sister, Mattie Evans Barnes. Mattie’s husband, John Barnes, was a sheriff. Bessie Ross married my Grandfather, an oilfield worker, Charles Howard Miller, on the 29th of June 1907 in Sperry, Oklahoma. They had three children, Fred Albert Miller, born December 30, 1908 in Kiefer, Oklahoma, Gladys Ruth Miller, born February 7, 1915 in Locust Grove, Oklahoma, and Robert E. Miller, January 4, 1918 in Healdton, Oklahoma. My grandmother and her children moved to Long Beach, California in 1923, to join her husband who was working in the oil fields there, constructing oil derricks. My Grandmother found work, too, outside the home. She worked in a tailor shop from 1925 to 1928. Sometime in 1926, she and Charles divorced. She married Archie L. Bates in 1928 and moved to Redondo Beach, California. I remember that they had chickens, ducks, a frog pond, and a large vegetable garden. I also remember having Sunday dinners at Grandmother’s house; she had fried chicken, mash potatoes, milk gravy, and fresh corn and lima beans. One of those Sundays, I remember my brother, Warren Lee (Bud) and I running behind the garage where my Grandfather had bee […]
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My Step Grandfather
My Step-Grandfather, Archie L. Bates was born in Pennsylvania on October 30, 1882. His Father, Lester E. Bates, was born in May 1858 in Pennsylvania. His Mother, Jane E. Cox Bates, was born July 1855 in West Virginia. They were married in 1882, probably in West Virginia. From what I can get from a search in Ancestry.com, Archie L. Bates had a brother, Harry C. Bates, and three sisters, Geneva Bell Bates, Irena May Bates, and Myrna (or Myra) Lee Bates Snow. She and Snow were married January 12, 1911. My Step-Grandfather, who went by the name ‘Bates’ was a hard worker. He worked all day in a steel mill as a sheet heater and when he came home from that, he worked in his large vegetable garden, and tended 150 bee hives. A Mr. Bechtel (the father of nine children!) was Bates’ bee partner. As I said, Bates was a hard worker. He was always into some kind of project. I remember that Bates had a little white terrier. I can’t remember his name, but I do remember that Bates taught him to climb a ladder and jump thru a hoop! In 1942, Archie L. Bates and my Grandmother, Bessie Ross Miller Bates, lived at 2320 Belmont Lane, in Redondo, California. Bates died July 28, 1946. He’s buried in Crestlawn Cemetery in Riverside, California.