Saturday, December 15, 2012

Surname Saturday ~ Gates Eslinger

GATES ~ origins are English, derived from Olde English gates to a property.  There are various spellings.

ESLINGER ~ origins are German, derived from "esl" - keeper of mules and donkeys. Recorded as early as 1200. There are various spellings.
SOURCE: Surname Data Base - surnamedb.com

 Oliver Uriah Gates
1802 - 1882
Catherine Hull Webb Gates
1800 - 1875
Handwritten Family Tree - 33 pages
Research and compiled by L. B. (Gates) Greenall (deceased)
 
Nancy Frances (Gates) Eslinger is my paternal third great aunt. My first source of information on Nancy is from a handwritten Gates Family Tree given to my mother in 1986. It was researched and compiled by my father's first cousin. They were both born in Kansas and emigrated to Canada with their parenst in the early 1900's.

Oliver Uriah Gates 1802-1882 Catherine Hull (Webb) Gates 1800-1875 and their Descendants; page 2.

Nancy Frances Gates
Born November 17, 1829, Candor, Tioga County, New York.
Died November 14, 1913, Fort Dodge, Webster County, Iowa, aged 83 years, 11 months, 17 days.

Nancy was married in 1873 to ~ Ephriam Duke Eslinger (a widower with 6 children)
Born June 2, 1885. Died September 22, 1889, aged 64 years, 8 months, 20 days.
Ephriam and Nancy are buried beside each other in Osborn Cemetery, 2 miles North of Lovilia, Iowa.

Nancy and Ephriam were married 2 years after his first wife Mary Jane had died. In about 1904, Nettie was adopted by Nancy (GATES) ESLINGER. Nancy was a widow at the time and would have been about 75 years old. Her husband Ephriam had died in 1889, 17 years earlier. Probably because of Nancy's own age she referred to herself as Nettie's grandmother instead of her mother.

I was interested in Nancy due to the fact that she had adopted children as a widow and at the late of about 75 years. The child was thought to have been abandoned. This information is included in the handwritten Family Tree, as well as Nancy's Obituary, dated November 20, 1913.
EXCERPT: OBITUARY Lovillia Press, November 20, 1913 :
She leaves two brothers, Levi GATES of Ottumwa and Edward GATES of Flagler, Colorado, also D. W. Masters, who was received into the home when ten years of age and who now lives on the old farm, and Nettie, who was received into the home when about seven years of age. To these hearts she was a true loving mother, their feelings that they indeed had a mother in the fullest sense.

SOURCE OF OBITUARY: S. Stewart member of Find A Grave, Nancy Frances Gates Eslinger Memorial, Find A Grave, November 2012.