New Home Baptist Church Baptizing of Bethel and Ethel Bates

This is the baptizing of Bethel (Buster) and Ethel (Deedle) Bates by old Preacher Stover in the 1930s.  The men would dam up the creek on the church property with bags of dirt about a week before the baptizing so that the water would be deep enough.  Bethel and Ethel Bates are the twins of Lem and Lillie Smith Bates. 

Ethel (Deedle) Bates Daughter of Lemuel (Lem) Harris and Lillie Smith Bates

This is a photo of Ethel Bates.  She was born on February 27, 1923.  Ethel is the daughter of Lem and Lillie Smith Bates.  She married James Elvin Gravitt.  James is the brother of Mildred Bates who married Bethel Bates her twin. Ethel could play the piano and a guitar, even though she never took a lesson. She played for churches from the thirties to the sixties.  Ethel could cook like her mother Lillie Bates. Eating at her house was like eating at Grandma's. Ethel died September 6, 2010. (Picture was made before she married in the late thirties.)