Bates was born in Salt Lake City, Utah to John Fetzer, an architect,[1] and his wife Margaret Baer.
[2][3] In 1931, she established a Yesharah Society at the University of Utah, where women who had returned from missions could keep in contact with each other.
[2] Bates earned several degrees at the University of Utah, a Bachelor of Science in Sociology,[5] a Bachelor of Arts in Music,[5] a Master of Arts in 1959,[7] followed by a PhD, developing a new system of coding music for blind musicians.
[2] Besides "Book of Mormon Stories", Bates also wrote the song "Pioneer Children Sang As They Walked",[8] described as "Perhaps the most familiar and best loved ..
[8] Bates had been inspired to write the song after meeting 104-year-old Ruth May Fox, who as a child had traveled on foot and by wagon to Utah.