Bill Gates writes heartfelt letter after the death of Bill Gates Sr.

Bill Gates Sr. passed away on Monday at the age of 94. He was surrounded by his family.

Gates died peacefully at his beach home from Alzheimer’s disease, the family announced Tuesday.

His son, Bill Gates, wrote a letter on the Gates Notes blog about the work his father did as a philanthropist, how he influenced the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and how he shaped the lives of people around him.

“I know he would not want me to overuse the word, but there is no danger of doing that now. The experience of being the son of Bill Gates was incredible. People used to ask my dad if he was the real Bill Gates. The truth is, he was everything I try to be. I will miss him every day.”

Melinda Gates also tweeted about her father-in-law and what he meant to her.

I am heartbroken about the passing of Bill Gates Sr. It is difficult to overstate what he meant to me, to our family, and to our foundation. Bill Sr. liked to say, in characteristic modesty, that the secret to his success was simply “showing up.”

— Melinda Gates (@melindagates) September 15, 2020

In an obituary the family credited the patriarch with a “deep commitment to social and economic equity,” noting that he was responsible for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s first efforts to improve global health as well as his advocacy for progressive taxation, especially unsuccessful efforts to pass a state income tax on the wealthy in Washington.

Born in 1925, Gates Sr. grew up in Bremerton, Washington, where his parents owned a furniture store. He joined the Army following his freshman year at the University of Washington and was en route to Japan when it surrendered in 1945.

He served a year in war-torn Tokyo before returning to the United States and resuming his education, his family said. After earning his law degree in 1950, he began working in private practice and as a part-time Bremerton city attorney.

He formed a Seattle law firm with two other partners that eventually became Preston Gates and Ellis — now known as K & L Gates, one of the world’s largest law firms. The firm was one of the first to work with the region’s technology industry.

Gates Sr. met his first wife, Mary Maxwell, at the University of Washington. They had two daughters and a son — Gates Jr. — and remained married until her death in 1994. Two years later he married Mimi Gardner, then the director of the Seattle Art Museum, with whom he spent the last quarter-century of his life.

“When I was a kid, he wasn’t prescriptive or domineering, and yet he never let me coast along at things I was good at, and he always pushed me to try things I hated or didn’t think I could do (swimming and soccer, for example),” Gates Jr. wrote in the tribute. “And he modeled an amazing work ethic. He was one of the hardest-working and most respected lawyers in Seattle, as well as a major civic leader in our region.”

That civic work included serving as a trustee of the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, Planned Parenthood and United Way. He also served as the president of the state and local bar associations and in the leadership of the American Bar Association, helping create diversity scholarships and promoting legal services for the poor.

Gates Sr. was a towering figure by reputation and in person — he stood 6-foot-7 (2 meters) tall — and his counsel was often sought. Former Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz has said that when he was struggling to raise the money to buy the six-store coffee chain in 1987, Gates Sr. stepped in to rescue him from a rival buyer — not only by investing, but by personally taking Schultz to visit the rival, demanding as he loomed over the rival’s desk: “You are going to stand down and this kid is going to realize his dream. Do you understand me?”

Gates retired from law in 1998 and took on prominent roles with the Gates Foundation, helping launch its work in global health.

The family said that due to restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, a memorial service would be held later.

The Associated Press’s Gene Johnson contributed to this report.

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