Obituary of Edward W. Gates

Edward Wilder Gates of Burdett, NY, died in a car accident on Wednesday, September 27, 2023 at the age of 91. He was born November 5, 1931, to Lillian Francis Cowdell Gates and Paul Wilder Gates. He grew up in Ellis Hollow, NY, and was the oldest with three sisters: Lillian, Annette, and Rosemary, who all called him Ted. His father was a history professor at Cornell University with a focus on land policy. His mother, also a historian, was a proper English lady who taught him the correct way to eat soup, a skill he loved to demonstrate. In Ellis Hollow, Ed raised chickens and developed a passion for birdwatching, spending time in the woods with his friends Dickie May and Bill Hamilton. Ed briefly attended Cornell University for college before joining the US Army at the age of 19. He was stationed in Germany where he abhorred standing in lines but liked riding his motorcycle to go birdwatching. This was also where he learned the German phrases he would frequently bark at his family for the rest of his life. "Dein Wunsch ist mein Befehl," was his favorite—Your wish is my command. After the army, Ed earned his degree from Columbia University for physics. He loved math and would quiz anyone and everyone on complex math problems. In 1956, he met his first wife, Margot Wolters, and in 1960 they moved to Upstate NY where Ed worked for General Electric, whom he referred to as Greatly Eccentric. Edward and Margot had three sons: Lansing, John, and Geoffrey. In 1967, Ed and Margot bought a dairy farm in Burdett, NY, on Skyline Drive. He started out with 25 cows and a stanchion tie-stall barn. With the help of his family, Ed grew this farm from 200 acres to a sprawling 4,000 acres with a modern double 18 milking parlor. Seneca Valley Dairy Farms now milks 1400 cows and has a herd average of 28,500. Carrying on his life's work are his sons John and Lance and grandson Taylor. Ed worked sunup to sundown all his life and lost part of two fingers to farming—though he always claimed he got hungry and ate them. One of his greatest joys was mowing fields and hedgerows and he hated to see good farmland go to waste. In 1986, Ed met his second wife, Elaine, at Cornell Cooperative Extension. They shared a passion for the outdoors and traveled to Costa Rica for their honeymoon, where he always said he saw more birds than he could write down. Ed and Elaine had two daughters: Alice and Grace. Edward fostered a great love for reading in his daughter Alice and the two of them would spend hours in Barnes and Noble together. His pride and joy were Grace's paintings and he loved seeing what crazy outfit she put on next and counting how many countries she had been to. Later in life, Edward traveled the world, going to Thailand, Laos, Belize, and Jamaica to birdwatch; he particularly liked the challenge of trying to distinguish various types of shorebirds. Ed loved Pepsi (not Coke!) and Tootsie Rolls and frequently said: "What the farmer doesn't know, he doesn't eat." He instilled in his family a hard-working drive and rarely took a day off, splitting wood into his 90s for the wood stove he loved to sit beside. He was a member of the Burdett Fire Department for 50 years until the infamous paprika incident, and a proud member of Farm Bureau: "Farms keep Schuyler County green!" He enjoyed studying the geology of the Finger Lakes and tracking the glacial advancements in the area. He would like everyone to remember that there is good farmland in the National Forest despite what Far Above Cayuga's Waters claimed in the 1930s. He is survived by his wife, Elaine Dalrymple; daughters, Alice and Grace; first wife, Margot Wolters; sons, Lance (m. Diane), John (m. Susie), and Geoffrey (m. Barbara); granddaughters, Siara and Madison; grandsons, Taylor (m. Kari-Ann), Gavin, Colin, Wolfgang, and Sebastian; great-granddaughter, Amelia Wilder Gates; and sisters, Lillian (m. Richard) Goodman, Annette (m. Preston) Shimer, and Rosemary (m. Joseph) Campos. As long as we remember him and his mischievous spirit he "ain't dead yet." There will be an informal gathering of friends and family at the Burdett Fire House on Sunday, October 8, from 12–2 p.m. **In lieu of flowers, please renew your Farm Bureau membership. To leave his family a message of condolence, please visit www.vedderscottzinger.com