Edith was born in Takoma Park, Maryland, and raised in nearby Vienna, Virginia, one of three children born to Edith Carolyn Stalker and Donald A. Eckenroth. Music was an important activity in the home; her mother, though an amateur, was organist in the Vienna Seventh-day Adventist church.

She started piano lessons at age seven and violin at ten. She listened extensively to classical music recordings and, with her mother, attended several live free performances of the Mellon Art Gallery Orchestra in Washington, D.C. Additionally, on occasion she visited Columbia Union College, later Washington Adventist University, and Sligo church, where she would hear CUC violin teacher Jane Ralls play. She later wrote about that experience and another with Minnie Iverson Wood:

Edith was active in music while attending Shenandoah Academy in Virginia, singing in the choir and a girls' trio and playing clarinet in the academy band. All during her elementary and academy years, she was encouraged by her teachers to become a music teacher.

After graduating form SVA in 1958, she enrolled as a music major at CUC, where she was encouraged to become an instrumental music teacher and conductor. She thrived in the department under the tutelage of its teachers and then later as a colleague with them:

She married Edward L. Gates in 1968, four years after graduating from CUC with a B.Mus. in 1964. Although not a musician, he has an avid interest in music and continues as a solid supporter of her many activities in music.

In 1969, Gates was hired as a full-time music teacher at CUC, having worked for the past five years on a part-time basis at the college and at J.N. Andrews and Sligo elementary schools. She taught music in all three schools until 1972 and then continued to teach at the college until 1985 and at J.N. Andrews until 1988. In those years, she conducted orchestras and string ensembles, taught private lessons and class violin, directed children's and English handbell choirs, and classes at the college in music education, conducting?, and orchestration.

In 1975, Gates started a three-octave English handbell ensemble in the CUC music program, her first, after being introduced to the bells in a workshop at Westminster Choir College. It quickly became very popular with audiences and led to a December 1977 article about the ensemble in the Review and Herald. In the article, she observed, "I've never had an organization that has experienced such instant success with all audiences. Because of the enthusiasm from both students and spectators, I've added another octave this year."

Gates limited membership only to music education majors. Vickie Corey, a senior English major who had observed a rehearsal as she prepared to write the article, closed it with, "Angels We Have Heard on High was drifting over the empty seats when I slipped away. It was so beautiful! I must confess, I was almost ready to change my major."

Gates completed an M.A. in music at the University of Maryland in 1974, where she studied violin with H. Braunlich. She then continued graduate study at UM, where she completed a Ph.D. in 1984. She later wrote about her doctoral study and dissertation:

In 1988, Gates was hired to teach music at the Holton-Arms School, a private girls' school in Bethesda, Maryland, where she conducted two orchestras and three English handbell choirs until 1992, when she retired. Following an audition by Stephen Simon, conductor of the Washington Chamber Symphony, a resident group at the John F. Kennedy Performing Arts Center, the choir was given thirteen consecutive contracts to perform with the them at concerts in the Center, and she was invited to conduct the handbell choir in a solo number each year.

In one of those years, it was a solo accompanied by the orchestra, with Gates as conductor. This proved to be especially meaningful to her because one of the violinists in the orchestra happened to be Jane Ralls, the CUC teacher who years ago had so inspired her. Following the concert, Ralls came back to Gates' dressing room where they had what Gates described as a "wonderful reunion."

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