Margaret Meroney Bates

(This is an undated article. Pleasant Forest is working to get the date and name of the publication. This article was published in a local paper in Florida)

Mrs. Margaret Ellen Bates, who will be 101 years old on March 22. She raises her own chickens, feeds them, and gathers the eggs. She loves flowers of all kinds. “I’ve known lots of good people in my life,” Mrs. Bates said, “and a few mighty mean ones, but people are just about the same as they were.” Mrs. Bates is the grandmother of James Glasco, Inverness. 

BY BELL LAND

Mrs. Margaret Ellen Bates will be 101 years old on March 22 (1961). She is the grandmother of James Glasco, Inverness and lives with Jimmy’s mother, Mrs. Jimmie Mae Glasco, in St. Petersburg. The two ladies have been staying at Gunn’s Sportsman Camp on the Gospel Island road. Mrs. Glasco likes to fish and Mrs. Bates enjoys the bright sunny weather in the yard. 

In an interview with Mrs. Bates, she was asked what was the first thing she remembered.

“I was just a little girl. It was during wartime…the war between the states and some Yankee soldiers took my potatoes away from me. It made a great impression on me and I never forgot it. Food was scarce then. I had been to my grandmother’s and she had baked some sweet potatoes for our supper. I had them in my apron and was hurrying home through the woods when these soldiers met me. One of them said, “What have you got in your apron, Sissie"? I told him potatoes and he asked if I would give them to him. I wouldn’t do it and so he took every one and I went squalling home, hungry. My mother died when I was three years old. My two older brothers had volunteered. One was a prisoner in Camp Chase. He almost died. The other had been shot in the scalp. The bullet just creased a furrow along his head and the hair never grew any more, but they both came home. We lived in Tennessee and there were skirmishes between the north and south all the time right around us. General Beauregard had his headquarters at our house and he held me on his lap and laughed when I told him old Burnsides had stolen all our chickens. ANOTHER time I was on a train with my father and a box car full of Yankee soldiers. I fell off the moving train right out of the door. One of the soldiers hopped off and scooped me out of the snow. I saw Lincoln once. He was on a train that went through our town. Folks thought a heap of Lincoln around where we lived. It was those low-down triflin’ carpet baggers and bushwackers that the north turned loose on the south that were always fighting. Asked if she remembered her wedding dress, Mrs. Bates said, “It was dove gray as well as I remember. I was married when I was 18 years old and that is a long time ago. But it had a basque waist and a full skirt. Yes, I had all my babies at home. I never was in the hospital in my life except to see somebody else. I quit worrying about anything. I have nothing to worry about. Of course I can get up and go like I used to, but at least I am no completely helpless.

No, I never used tobacco or coffee or whiskey but I do like my tea, and I ‘ve always had lot of salt and sugar to eat. Well, I’ve had my ups and downs and some mighty good times mixed along with it. I like to read. The girls like to watch TV. It seems silly for old women to sit up till 1 or 2 in the morning, but sometimes we do. Jimmie Mae watching TV and me reading. I always loved to read. Yes, I see lots of change and differences since I came here 40 years ago. Then St. Pete was just a little hamlet. I liked it better then. Everybody knew everybody and some people were friendly. WHAT do I think of atom bombs? Well, I think the rockets and shooting dogs through the air disturbs something and that is why our weather has changed. No, I wouldn’t think we could live on the moon. If the Lord had made the moon fit for people to live on, he would have put them there in the first place. People have more than they can tend to right down here.

Yes I see lots of changes, but as far as being better or worse, I think it’s about the same. There are more people so it seems there is more meaness, just as there is more goodness. I guess the children will all come in for my birthday, it would not seem like my birthday if they didn’t. I always get a big cake. There are five generations of us now, me, Jimmie Mae, my daughter, Jimmy Glasco, her son; little Jimmy, his son; and baby Becky, little Jimmy’s baby. It makes a mighty nice birthday.”

Mrs Bates other daughter, Mrs. I.F. Goodwin, of Lenore, Tenn., is visiting her mother until after her birthday.

Birth: 22 Mar 1860 Farragut, Knox, Tennessee, USA

Death: 8 Mar 1962 St Petersburg, Pinellas, Florida

Of interest, in the 1920 census, Margaret (Ella) and her husband James were living in St. Petersburg, Fl. In 1930 they were living in Loudon with their daughter's family. In 1940, Margaret was widowed and once again living in Florida.