Gwendolyn Wingate Papers

Gwendolyn Rosser Wingate was born to James H. and Inez Rosser on July 26, 1920, in Crockett, Texas. The Rossers, who were the parents of five children, were both educators. After the death of her father, Gwendolyn came with her family to Beaumont in 1928. She graduated from Beaumont High School and worked for the Security State Bank before her marriage to Rube M. Wingate in 1938. She was the mother of two sons, Dan and Jim Wingate, and a foster son, Rocco Binaggia.

Wingate was a talented writer blessed with great imagination and powers of description. She co-authored with John H. Walker the book, Beaumont: A Pictorial History, published in 1983. She provided the text for Walker's collection of photographs. Walker characterized her as "a great lady, a great historian and a meticulous researcher."

Wingate wrote "The Kishi Colony,' the story of Japanese settlers near Orange, Texas, which was published in The Folklore of Texan Cultures, a bicentennial publication of the Texas Folklore Society. She wrote hundreds of articles for the Beaumont Enterprise, and for Texas and Louisiana agricultural journals, including Southwest Farm Press and Texas Farmer-Stockman. These articles included history and genealogy, personality profiles, and agricultural topics. Wingate was a member of the Southeast Texas Genealogical and Historical Society and contributed many articles to their publication, The Yellowed Pages.

She died on March 14, 1989, at her home in Fannett, Texas.