home - William Henry Gates (born 1891)

William Henry Gates (born 1891)

"WHG1" / #WHG1

Full Gates family album pics ( WSJ ) album : [HN00YX][GDrive] / This pic : [HN00YY][GDrive]

From left to right, William Henry Gate [born 1891], Lillian Elizabeth Gates, Bill Gates Sr. and his only sibling, Merridy Gates.

Also known as "William Henry Gates I"

Birthdate: March 14, 1891 in Seattle, King County, Washington, United States [HL0049][GDrive]

Death: August 17, 1969 (78) in Bremerton, Kitsap County, Washington, United States [HL0049][GDrive]

Parents - Father is William Henry Gates (born 1858) and Rebecca [Eppinhauser] Gates

Husband of Lillian Elizabeth Gates

Father of Merridy Belle Williams; William H. Gates, Sr. and Private Private

Brother of Florence Martha Schumaker and Pearl Ann Hogenson

1891 (March) - Birth - In Seattle

Full sheet - [HL004O][GDrive]

Birthplace - Seattle, King, Washington, USA - The Residence is "10th [illegible] Howell St."

[HL004P][GDrive]

1900 - USA Census

Full PDF of transcript - [HS002W][GDrive] / Full census sheet - [HS002T][GDrive]

Father's Occupation is hard to read, might say "grocer" ? NOTE : One servant living with the Gates family at this time

Address - The Gates family is living in Seattle, but the address is impossible to read on the Census form. It looks a little bit like "South of Canal" is written there, but not sure.

[HS002X][GDrive]

1910 Census - Residence in Seattle

Full PDF of transcript : [HS002Y][GDrive] / Full census image - [HS002Q][GDrive]

At age 19, William Henry Gates is now listed as "working in furniture store"

[HS002Z][GDrive]

Home - 1625 3rd Ave West, Seattle

Zillow listing : [HW0035][GDrive]

[HW0036][GDrive]

[HW0037][GDrive]

[HW0038][GDrive]

1913 (July) - William H Gates I gets married to "Lillian Elizabeth Rice"

Event place - Kitsap, Washington / Tacoma

Marries Lillian Elizabeth Rice / Father is W.H. Rice

[HN011L][GDrive]

1917 (June) - Enlists in draft for WW1 (Asks for exemption)

is age 26 at this time

Employer - Ames Shipyard and Dry Dock - "Machinist in Ship Yard" ; job is as a "machinist in ship yard"
Home Address - 5944 48th South Street
Claimed Draft exemption because "employed in ship yard"

Employer is "Ames Shipbuilding and Drydock Co. , Seattle" ? More info here - https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/curtis/id/515/

[HG005T][GDrive]

1913 - 1918 : Father "Wm H. Gates Furniture" and "Wm. H Gates Second Hand Goods" in Business in Bremerton

See Puget Sound Genealogical Society Newsletter , Volume 30 Number 2 June 2005 : [HP002X][GDrive]

Gates, Wm. H. (2nd hand goods) 214 Second [St.] 1917-18
Gates, W. H. (furniture) 214 Second [St.] 1913-14

1918 (May 25) - Daughter Peal Gates singing at a graduating HS ceremony

Full newspaper page : [HN011J][GDrive]

[HN011K][GDrive]

1920 census - Living in Bremerton, in the house next to his parents on "Burwell Ave."

Full PDF of Transcript : [HS0030][GDrive] / Full Census form - [HS002R][GDrive]

William H Gates

lives in the building (#260 Burwell, Bremerton, WA) next to his parents ..
he is also a "Merchant" in the "furniture" industry (no longer a "Machinist in ship yard")

(Note - wife and daughter are on next full sheet of the census - see [HS003E][GDrive]

[HS0031][GDrive]

[HS002V][GDrive]

[HW003F][GDrive]

[HW003G][GDrive]

[HW003H][GDrive]

More maps .. Bremerton

[HW003J][GDrive]

1926 (May 1) - Father dies

Full newspaper page - [HN00YL][GDrive] (See official death certificate here : [HL004C][GDrive] )

[HN00YM][GDrive]

1930 census - Married, living at own home in Bremerton

Employment is listed as "furniture merchant"

Full PDF Transcript : [HS0036][GDrive] / Full census sheet (image) - [HS0035][GDrive]

Address - 231 Sixth Street, Bremerton (more info below)

[HS0034][GDrive]

(1930) Home - Address - 231 Sixth Street, Bremerton (built in 1918)

Since the house was built in 1918, we can assume that it was not bought new by the Gates family ... PDF Summary of home info at [HW0039][GDrive]

[HW003A][GDrive]

1930s (early) est. - (or maybe 1920s) William Henry Gates I with family

No date provided with this photo . Since Merridy is several years older than her brother, this cant be those two children side-by-side

[HW003K][GDrive]

1933 (March 16) - Mother Rebecca Gates passes

Full newspaper page : [HN00YN][GDrive] / Death certificate here - [HL004A][GDrive]

[HN00YO][GDrive]

1930s - Working long hours at his Furniture Store that he owned with a partner

Source : [HN00YW][GDrive]

[The] father [of William Henry Gates II, aka Bill Sr.] was a workaholic who sacrificed child-rearing to work at a furniture store he owned with a partner. "His complete focus was on the store," Bill Sr. says.

1934-1936 - Braman family buy lot in Bremerton next to W.H. Gates I residence and build custom mansion

Braman family : James d'Orma Braman (born 1901) / Source : [HN00YW][GDrive]

Mr. Gates Sr. [, son of William Henry Gates I ,] early on built a life outside of his home. Next door, the Braman family had two boys for him to play with and a father who would become his most important role model [for William Henry Gates II ].

That man, Dorm Braman, had built his business and would later become a Naval officer, mayor of Seattle and a U.S. assistant secretary of transportation. In the late 1930s, Mr. Braman brought Bill Sr. on family road trips across the country. He was scoutmaster of Bill Sr.'s Boy Scout troop, leading the boys on hikes through the Olympic Mountains and driving them in a beat-up bus to Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks. The troop spent two years building a log house from Douglas firs they felled themselves. Mr. Braman had "no sense of personal limitations whatsoever," says Mr. Gates Sr.

1937/1938 - William Henry Gates is the treasurer of the Bremerton Chamber of Commerce - Signs incorporation papers for the Bremerton Chamber of Commerce

HistoryLink.org article: Source : [HW0033][GDrive]

Heading for Depression

With peace went the booming prosperity of the second decade of the twentieth century, and Bremerton settled into a period of slower growth. Employment at the base tapered off from the wartime high of 6,500 to bottom out at fewer than 2,500 by 1927, but the town itself had grown to a point that many businesses could survive by serving the area's civilian population and the lessened needs of the military. Homes were being built, car dealerships opened, services expanded, and optimism prevailed.

Bremerton absorbed the next-door community of Charleston in 1927, further increasing its population and tax base. In 1928, construction began on the light cruiser USS Louisville, and employment at the naval yard jumped by 1,000, providing additional flotation to the local economy. In June 1929, just four months before the stock market crash and the beginning of the Great Depression, Bremerton voters passed an $835,000 bond issue to improve the city's water system and to build an electrical plant.

In November, after the bottom fell out of the world economy, work began on a bridge linking Bremerton with the former Manette, now East Bremerton, financed almost entirely by public subscription. When the full effects of the Depression set in, Bremerton, perhaps inured to some degree by the previous economic ups and downs of the naval yard, actually managed better than most towns and cities.

Surviving the Thirties

The Manette Bridge opened to great fanfare in June 1930, and with that completed the people of Bremerton tackled the Great Depression. A Puget Sound Navy Yard Stabilization Bureau was established to lobby in Washington D.C., for shipyard work, and each worker at the yard pledged $5 a year to support its efforts. They also agreed to regular payroll deductions to help support Kitsap County's unemployed, and all employed workers in the county were asked to give up one day's pay a month for the same purpose.

The federal government did its part too, and the shipyard actually expanded during the Depression years. Concerns over Japan's actions in the Pacific led to orders for several new ships. County projects funded by the Works Progress Administration also helped. So successful were these combined efforts that Bremerton experienced record growth in 1934 and 1935, and by the end of the decade its population had increased by half, to over 15,000. By 1940, when the national unemployment rate was still well over 14 percent of the labor force, Bremerton's stood at just 6.9 percent. Bremerton was doing well, and in 1937 its incorporated status was upgraded to city of the second class.

Business was good enough that the Bremerton Chamber of Commerce, which had been in existence since 1907, saw fit to formally incorporate in March 1938. The incorporation papers were signed by its treasurer, William H. Gates Sr., grandfather of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. And during the late 1930s and early 1940s, Bremerton was also home to the controversial founder of the Church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard.