Myrtle Gates, who taught choral music at SHHS from 1951 to 1976, celebrated her centennial birthday Sept. 15 with a gala party of 70 friends at her residence in Fairfax, Va.
Gates lived in Sweet Home from 1951 until 2002, when she moved to Virginia to be closer to her daughter, Margaret Donivan.
Born Myrtle Rose Letts in Oklahoma City, Okla. on Sept. 15, 1910, Gates’ family moved to Laurel, Miss., when she was 6 and she grew up there.
She married, but her husband died in 1949. Her parents, who had lived for many years in Toledo, talked Gates into moving west, in the summer of 1951.
Donivan said her mother interviewed for jobs in both Lebanon and Sweet Home. A young man, Lynn Sjoland, also interviewed for those positions and decided to take Lebanon, so Gates was offered Sweet Home.
Donivan said her mother “brought many exciting musical programs to high school students,” leading such Gilbert and Sullivan productions as “The Mikado” and “The Pirates of Penzance,” as well as starting the traditional original Singing Christmas Tree in 1952.
Her student groups entertained at the social clubs in town, and her choruses always received superior ratings at state contests, Donivan said. She also expanded the music program in all the elementary schools, with all the children playing recorders from books that she wrote herself.
She directed many of the Chips ‘n’ Splinters performances in the summer.
Her daughter said she is “amazingly active” for a 100-year-old.
“Her mind is quite good,” Donivan said. “She does use a walker because of arthritis and fear of falling.
Gates lives in a senior residence near me where she shares her craft of quilling, leads a knitting group that makes baby blankets for a local hospital, and sings in the residence chorus.
“She tells me that she often dreams she is rehearsing her operettas and can name individual students she is coaching in roles,” her daughter said.
Donivan, a 1959 Sweet Home High School graduate, said her mother was thrilled to receive a call from former students at the recent Sweet Home Union High School 1955-60 class reunion, “singing a rousing ‘Happy Birthday’ to her.”