By Richard Carrier
Contributing Writer

Our elderly are our national treasures. They are vast storehouses of knowledge and experience, the repository of that ephemeral quality we all seek, wisdom. Dylan Thomas warned the aged not to be complacent with their earned maturity. “Old age should burn and rage at close of day.” Powhatan County’s oldest citizen still has that fire.

When you ask Elwood Floyd (E. Floyd) Yates the most important piece of wisdom he has learned in almost 105 years of living he will tell you in a strong voice, “To listen.” This is a rare example of a short answer from Mr. Yates. It is his penchant to tell stories. But if you take his direction and listen, listen carefully, he will unwrap life lessons for you.

“Harry Byrd was a friend of mine, a very good friend of mine.”(Harry Flood Byrd served as Governor of Virginia in the 1920’s, U.S. Senator from 1933 to 1965 and was the author of fiscal conservatism in Virginia.)

“He wrote me letters, lots of letters, in long hand. Did you know he only had a sixth-grade education? He didn’t do badly for someone with only a sixth grade education, now did he?”

Floyd Yates had taken the bow off of the box that held this life lesson, but he would not open that box until much later.

In 1927 Floyd Yates was passing through Powhatan County. He was 24 years old, had sold his interest in a failing automobile dealership in Louisa County and was headed to Farmville to open a new Ford dealership. He stopped at Maxey’s Store for a Coke. “In those days a Coke cost a nickel if you drank it in the store, but if you took the bottle with you it cost you seven cents. I didn’t want to lose those two cents so I stayed there in Maxey’s Store and drank my Coke.” He never got to Farmville.

Mr. Yates began a conversation with Mr. Maxey detailing his plans for the dealership in Farmville, but Mr. Maxey convinced him that prospects were as good, if not better, in Powhatan and offered to introduce him to his banker. That introduction was the catalyst for not only his 60 year success at Yates Motor Company and other business ventures in the county, but also 80 years of public service at both local and state levels.

Floyd Yates was born in Charles City County in 1903.

“At least that’s what they tell me. I don’t have a birth certificate, they didn’t have them then. My mother had the Postman verify my birth since he was the oldest person in the area.” The family moved to Smithfield where his father operated a saw mill and Mr. Yates learned the skills there that would later be the basis for a successful lumber business in Powhatan. He also learned the value of timber as a natural resource and the need to control its harvesting. He clerked in a store. He got so good at working on commission that the owner couldn’t afford him and let him go. He moved on to a job as a laborer on the old wooden James River Fleet and worked his way up to engineer. A supposed partnership in a retail operation offered by a relative lured him to Hanover County. When he got there the partnership had been reduced to a clerk’s job. So it was on to Louisa and a partnership in a new Ford dealership and subsequently to Maxey’s Store.

Floyd Yates and Mary Bowles married in 1926 and had been together 71 years when she passed away. They had one child, Elwood F. Yates Jr., a robust 80-year-old. Elwood lives next to his father on Scottsville Road.

Floyd and his little dog Grumpy live on a 14-acre parcel with a four-acre lake.

“He’s a real nuisance,” he said as he gently rubbed the small mixed breed behind the ears and fed him a treat. “But when they gave him to me last year, I told them if he was going to live here his name was going to be Grumpy.”

Yates has full-time housekeeping/nursing assistance but drove his car until last year. He quit driving voluntarily.” I still have a driver’s license, but my right foot seemed to be getting a little confused, so I took myself off of the road.” A stroke, “some years ago,” according to Elwood, created some lingering effects on his right side and he uses a walker to move around his home. His speech is slightly slurred but remarkably strong. “It’s been wonderful,” he said, “but not always easy. I just don’t like to bring up the bad things.”

Floyd Yates’ service in the House of Delegates from 1939 to 1952 and his Chairmanship of the State Democratic Party are certainly his most notable political achievements, but they are not what he is most proud of.

Floyd Yates is a true conservationist. Serving on and with the Virginia Game Commission, the Virginia Forestry Association, the Virginia Wildlife Federation and the Virginia Conservation and Economic Development Board have given him the forum he needed to advance conservation in both the State and the County.

Wildlife and timber conservation initiatives by Mr. Yates helped to save the wild turkey and slow over-timbering.

“Having the privilege to hunt has been very important to me since I was a boy. I saved my money for a whole summer to buy my first hunting license,” he recalled. As recognition of his stewardship of conservation the new State Park at Maidens will carry his name.

One of the oldest institutions in Democratic Party politics has been the annual Wakefield Shad Planking. Floyd Yates has attended all fifty-nine of them. He plans to attend his 60th Shad Planking this year, but has new plans for the event. “This year I’m going to take a woman,” he said with a wide grin. Carolyn Cios, Powhatan County Administrator, will accompany Mr. Yates.

Floyd Yates’ business enterprises in Powhatan County included the Ford dealership, Yates Oil Company, several saw mills and the hands-on operation of 800 acres in farm land. “We lost money in the farming business,” he admitted. He was Chairman of the Bank of Powhatan and sat on the Board of Directors of Southern Bank. How has he adjusted to retirement?

“Don’t know. I haven’t gotten there yet. I still do a little bit of private banking,” he explained. Mr. Yates will celebrate his 105th birthday on March 18th.

Somewhere in all this activity, Floyd Yates found time to serve as a Substitute Trial Justice. While adjudicating issues with young people and misdemeanor adult offences he developed a philosophy of “common sense and justice, and I’ve lived pretty much on that road ever since,” he said. Mr. Yates considers the elimination of the fee-paid judicial system in place at that time to be the most positive change in the County during his lifetime.

Mr. Yates was almost single-handedly responsible for bringing paved roads to the County by negotiating the right-of-ways with individual landowners. He served on the Powhatan County Board of Supervisors. His local administration of President Roosevelt’s New Deal program during the Depression saw the development of both new jobs and civic improvement. “There were so many programs I can’t remember them all and I was president of all of them,” he recalled.

As a Trial Justice his interaction with young people, either in trouble or on the way to it, fostered another lifelong crusade - education. “I was never on the School Board, but I was always a best friend of the School Board’s,” and a champion of minority causes. “My approach to problems was to get ahead of them. If something needed doing, let’s get it done before we’re forced in to doing it. Let’s just get ahead of it.”

Another honor which Floyd Yates holds dear is his appointment to the State Education Committee. A field trip to Western Virginia with an Educational Study Commission revealed the import of that appointment. “I looked around at that van full of people and realized all of them had their Doctorates. All except me, that is. I’ll tell you something I’ve never told a writer, but I’m going to tell you and you do with it what you will. I have done all of the things I’ve done with only a sixth-grade education. I’ve kept this a secret because I didn’t want young people to think they could be successful without getting all the education they can. Education is too important.”

With that revelation Floyd Yates seemed willing to share even more of himself. “Life is pretty good most of the time. It you haven’t found the good spots in it, you just haven’t looked for them. You get through it best by always doing what you say you’re going to do. I don’t have any regrets. When you’ve done as much as I’ve done you don’t have time for regrets.”

And, of course, the one question asked of all centenarians. How does one live to be 105? “Eat a-plenty, sleep a-plenty and exercise a-plenty and you’ll live longer,” this tall man with a remarkable full head of hair offered.

With that the interview was over. It was 5:45. I was invited to stay for a drink. I declined. “Well then please come back to visit soon.” I felt as if he truly meant it.

Floyd Yates’ home is a waypoint for friends and family. With ritualistic regularity a group arrives each evening at six o’clock to share a drink and a story or two with Powhatan County’s oldest citizen.