WILLIAM I. GATES. We are gratified to be able to place before our readers the name of one who has not only served the community well as a business man, but has also in his private life been consistently worthy of the regard in which he is held by his neighbors. He now has charge of the business of the Adams Express Company at Staunton, having had the interests of that company under his personal control ever since the agency was here established. He was formerly in the grocery business, keeping both a staple and fancy stock. He has been a resident of the city and vicinity all his life, and was here reared and educated. Since he reached the age of sixteen he has been in some kind of business.
Our subject was born near Staunton, April 2, 1867, and is the son of Joseph C. and Sarah (Bruce) Gates, natives of Ohio, who came to Illinois before their marriage and settled in this vicinity on a farm. Later they removed into the city, and here the mother died in 1887 at the early age of thirty-eight years. The father, who still survives, now resides here and has reached the age of fifty-eight.
The marriage of our subject at Edwardsville, this State, gave him a faithful and devoted wife in the person of Miss Jennie Halliday, who was born near Chesterfield, March 4, 1870. She was early orphaned, as her mother was called from earth when this daughter was only a few months old and the father passed away before she had reached the age of three years, but she was carefully reared by her paternal grandmother, who is no deceased, and on the death of that faithful and devoted grandparent, this lady fell heir to a comfortable fortune. She had received a thorough and excellent education in the public schools of Madison County, and has more than ordinary intelligence and ability as well as refinement.Mr. and Mrs. Gates are both members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and Mr. Gates belongs to Lodge No. 685, I.O.O.F., at Staunton, and has been prominently identified with all public movements in the city. He is a sound Republican, as is also his father, who was a devoted adherent to the Union cause during the war, and fought for three years during that conflict, suffering much from the exposures and privations of army life. Mr. And Mrs. Gates are the happy and proud parents of one son, David Ira, for whose future they are solicitous, and upon whose training they are willing to bestow unlimited care and expense.