Dan Bradley Cates

Funeral Services for Dan Bradley Cates, 88, Alto, Texas will be held at 2:00 PM, Thursday, April 27, 2023, at the Cold Springs Methodist Church located on FM 220 off Highway 21, west of Alto, officiated by the church pastor, Rev. Tim Ross.

Informal viewing is scheduled at the O.T. Allen & Son funeral home Wednesday April 26th from 9 AM to 5 PM.  Formal visitation will be held in the church fellowship hall prior to the funeral service beginning with a noon meal.  Additional visitation with a light meal will be held at the family residence in the Cold Springs Community following burial in the old section of Old Palestine Cemetery located east of Alto.   

Dan Bradley Cates was born on the Cates family farm in the Cold Springs Community on March 15, 1935, the youngest of nine children born to John Early and Mary Vera Dominy Cates. Mr. Cates attended early elementary school at Cold Springs, graduated from Alto High School in 1953 while running the family dairy and playing football.  Mr. Cates served in the US Army as a Quartermaster clerk in Korea and Japan. Mr. Cates attended Stephen F. Austin State University on the GI Bill graduating in 1960 with a B.S. in Forestry.

Mr. Cates was employed by the U.S. Forest Service from June 1960 to January 1992 as a professional forester, first in Florida, where he met his future wife.  They married in 1966.  Mr. Cates was later stationed in Hot Springs, Arkansas, before being transferred to Crockett, Texas, in 1973.  In 1980 the family built their home on his share of the old Cates Family Farm. In 1992 Mr. Cates began a new career as a cattle rancher within a mile of where he was born and reared.

Mr. Cates was a member of four genealogical societies: Cherokee County, Texas; Angelina County, Texas; Augusta, Georgia and the Old Edgefield District, South Carolina.

He is preceded in death by his parents, 3 sisters, and 4 brothers.  Surviving him are his wife, Vivian Leigh Toole Cates, of Alto and two sons and daughters-in-law all of Santa Fe, Galveston County, Texas, Daniel Toole and Heather Shae Williamson Cates and David Bradley and Leigh Ann Woitena Cates and their son Luke; sister Claire Belle Cates George of Sunnyside, Washington. 

In lieu of flowers donations can be made in Mr. Cates memory to a special account established by the family at the Cadence Bank in Alto to support 4-H Club and other youth activities in Cherokee County.

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