Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Tombstone Tuesday - William "Willie" Alexander GATES

In July 2010, my sister was on a forum where there was information about this postcard. The woman said that it was with some of their family's memorabilia, but she wasn't sure if it was from her relatives or her husband's.
She offered to send it to a family member if the identity could be confirmed by a rightful owner. She was satisfied that it belonged to our family and sent the postcard to my sister.


William "Willie" Alexander GATES
WILLIE
SON OF MR. & MRS. W. A. GATES
Born  Jan 8 1908
Died Mar 18 1911
ASLEEP IN PEACE
Buried Quinter, Gove County, Kansas.
This sweet heart-shaped headstone with the dove on top is for the eldest of the five children of Warren Addison GATES and Ada May (MILLER) GATES. Willie would be an older brother of my father and would be my uncle. He was named after Alexander Z. GATES, who was his grandfather and my great grandfather. (I've tried to find out what the Z. stands for, but no luck!)
Warren and Ada are my paternal grandparents.

SOURCES: Postcard of headstone: mailed from US to Canada
Name and dates: match to the Handwritten Family Tree - Oliver Uriah GATES and Catherine HULL.

P.S. I'm having problems with my neck and arm again, so can't spent as much time as I would like on researching. :-(
However, I have spent some time on ZAZZLE. I'll post more about that later.