Vada Bates and Tommy Grogan

Vada Bates was the daughter of Lem and Lillie Smith Bates. Vada married Tommy Grogan. This is a photograph of Vada with Tommy Grogan and their son, Vernie. This picture was taken at the Old Grogan Homestead located on Old Alabama Road now known as Wiley Bridge Road in Woodstock, Georgia.

Tommy Grogan is the son of Charlie and Leavy Grogan who owned this farm. Charlie died at age 42, leaving Leavy with seven small children. She sold the farm off in pieces until it was all gone trying to support the children. Many of the children were raised by relatives who helped out as much as they could.

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.)

J.B.(Jay) Bates, son of Lem and Lillie Smith Bates

J.B.(Jay) Bates was born in 1913. J.B. was the son of Lem Bates and Lillie Smith-Bates. This photo was taken in the early 1920's next to a relative's car.  Jay's first car in the thirties was  a T-model.

J.B. married Lois Sims on October 4, 1932.  The couple met in a mule and wagon at New Home Baptist Church. They had 4four children: Sarah, Jenny (the co-author of Oh, Come, Angel Band ~ The History of the Georgia Family Descending from Charlton and Nancy Bates), Jennevy (b. 1939) and Blanche (b. 1941). Jennevy and Blanche both died at birth.

Bethel (Buster) Bates

Bethel (Buster) Bates was born February 27, 1923.  He is the son of Lem and Lillie Smith Bates. Buster is the twin of Ethel Bates.  He was a born farmer until he died August 1, 1993. Buster had a road side market for his own fresh vegetables at that time. He married Mildred Gravitt, the sister of James Elvin Gravitt.  James Elvin Gravitt married his twin sister Ethel (Deedle) Bates.

Lem Bates son of Thomas Bates and Sarah Elizabeth Ward

Lem Bates c. 1913

Lemuel Harris Bates (a.k.a. Lem) was born in Homer (Banks County), Georgia on March 15, 1883 and died in Woodstock (Cherokee County), Georgia on September 21, 1954.

On May 25, 1907 Lem married his cousin Lillian (Lillie) Margaret Smith Bates. He was 24 and she was 14 years old. They had nine children (eight lived to adulthood) between 1910 and 1920 and one (Martha Louella Bates Jackson) who is still living at age 97.

Lem was the grandson of Charlton and Nancy Kelly Bates and the son of Thomas F. Bates and Sarah Elizabeth Ward Bates. His sister was Indy (Endy) Bates.

Indy (Endy) Bates Barfield

Indy (Endy) Bates Barfield was born in 1890. She is the daughter of Sarah Elizabeth Ward-Bates (Big Granny) and Thomas F. Bates. Indy married Petty Barfield in 1904 at the Cobb County Courthouse and left for Vernon Texas. Free from the poverty level of her family's rural farm life, she only returned to Georgia one time. However, she kept in touch with  her Georgia family sharing glimpses of her life with letters and pictures to her mother.  In this picture, found in Lillie Bates (wife of Lem Bates) personal belongings after her death, Indy wanted her mother to see her new $35 pearl necklace.  Looks like she did quite well for herself.

Three Generations Descending from Thomas F. Bates

Sarah Elizabeth Ward Bates (Big Granny) is the wife of Thomas F. Bates (son of Charlton and Nancy Bates). Here, she is pictured with her daughter-in-law Lillie (Grandma) Bates, who is the mother of the children shown: Cora, J.B. (Jay), and Mary Bates (circa 1914).

Lemuel Harris Bates and Lillie Margaret Smith Bates

Lem (Pap) and Lillie Margaret Smith Bates (Grandma Lillie)

Sarah Elizabeth Ward Bates and Lillian Margaret Bates

Sarah Elizabeth Ward Bates is the one our family referred to as Big Granny. She is the second-born child of David Ward and Nancy Martin-Ward. Here she is standing above Lillian Margaret Bates, the wife of Lemuel Harris Bates, whom we called Grandma Lillie.

 

Welcome to Charlton and Nancy Bates Ancestry Blog

I've started this blog in order to have a place where the entire Bates family can gather online and contribute information about our ancestry. Starting with our earliest proven ancestors, Charlton and Nancy Bates, Jenny Meadows-Sauls and Yvonne Mauldin Perry (both descended from Charlton and Nancy) are about to publish and release a book about the Bates family genealogy. It will include personal stories and photos as shared by cousins and other relatives in many states.

We invite you to share your stories and help us trace and document the line back even farther. Feel free to post comments. If you have a lot of information to share and would like to be an administrator for this blog, please let us know.