February 7, 1923 — March 12, 2024
Thelma Gates-Jackson passed away on March 12, 2024. She was 101 years old. She was born on February 7, 1923, in a little place called Log Cabin near Camptonville, California. Her parents, Fred and Phyllis Butz, lived in nearby Celestial Valley, where Thelma grew up with her sister Lois and brother Fred, Jr. Her father and her four uncles (Chester, Walter, George, and Merle) were the third generation of the Butz family that settled in the Valley in the 1860s.
Thelma was gracious. Everyone who knew her felt her big heart and giving nature. Her door was always open, and her refrigerator was always full. You could stop by unannounced, and she would insist you stay for dinner. She loved to feed people, and she had the gift of making everyone feel like family.
In 1942, shortly after graduating from high school, Thelma married Bob Gates. They raised their three kids in a house on a hill that came to be known as Gates Place in Grass Valley. In addition to cooking and baking, Thelma especially loved times at the family cabin at Gold Lake and winter months in the desert. She was fond of garage sales, Desert Rose dinnerware, flower arranging, hot tubs, quilting, and hunting for arrowheads. She and Bob liked to travel, whether on trailer trips to Fort Bragg with a gang of friends or to Germany, Siberia, and Sweden on trips where Bob represented the People-to-People California Foresters program.
Some years after Bob had passed away, Thelma married Ross Jackson, a fellow member of the United Methodist Church. Thelma found great purpose in participating in church functions and giving back to her community, including regularly working as part of the church’s pasty-making crew. She adopted Ross’s large family as her own, and they both looked forward to their big reunions in Iowa.
Thelma moved to Eskaton Village Grass Valley in 2018 where she faithfully attended water aerobics and painting classes. The family would like to give a special thank you to the team at Eskaton for their compassion, support, and loving care.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made in Thelmas’s name to the Grass Valley United Methodist Church. The family plans a celebration of her life later this year.