This is the story of Raymond A. Bates, who was born in 1893 in Arkansas. When he turned seventeen, he moved to Cottage Grove, Oregon, where he worked in the logging industry. In 1914 while working for the Booth Kelly Lumber Company in Wendling, Oregon, he married Naomi L. Wilson from Dorena, Oregon. They later settled in Springfield to raise their three children and spent the rest of their lives together.