Dr. Russell Gates lived a long and active life. He was born to Dr. Joseph and Jenny Gates on October 18, 1898 and raised in Kenyon, Minnesota. He survived a bout of scarlet fever when he was three years old.

In December 1910, he was commended for having no late nor tardy appearances for the first three months of grade 7. At 16, he was working as the night operator at the family owned local telephone exchange. The next year, 1916, he headed to Northfield, Minnesota to attend Carlton College where he was described as a promising basketball player. On January 1, 1917, Russell and his brother Elnathan played on an alumni team versus their former high school team. They won the game 27-15. In August of that year he was in a tennis tournament in Faribault.

He joined the military for World War I, but never saw overseas action. From May 1918 to September he was at Fort Caswell, North Carolina in artillery training, then he went to Fort Monroe, Virginia for Officer's training until December 1918 when he was discharged.

Russell returned to school , this time to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, where he completed his medical training and became a doctor.

In 1920, he drove a Nash car from Wisconsin back to Kenyon for one of the local garages.

In 1927, he travelled to England and home again.

In the 1930's, Russell lived in Minot, North Dakota. In 1935 he was the chairman of the tournament committee at the Minot Country Club, and a director of the North Dakota State Golf Association.

From approximately 1940 onward, he lived in Santa Barbara, California. Russell visited his brother Joseph, an architect, in 1949. He was travelling with Otto Eitel and Charlotte Frank from the Eitel Family Hoteliers and Restaurateurs - owners of the Bismark Hotel in Chicago among others. In 1958 he dined with Otto Eitel and former Massachusetts Governor Alvin T Fuller, among others at the Racquet Club in Santa Barbara just three months before Governor Fuller died.

Russell died on December 18, 1975 in Santa Barbara, California at the age of 77. He was cremated.