History of Nettie Alberta Cottrell Blamires

I, Nettie Alberta Cottrell Blamires, was born in Kaysville, Davis County, Utah, 27 October 1888 in the home of my grandparents, Charles and Sarah A. Crockett Layton Cottrell. They were English converts to the Church.

My father, James Alfred Cottrell, a native of England, and my mother, Edith Sarah Layton, a daughter of pioneer parents, were married 23 Nov 1887 in the Logan Temple.

In the spring of 1889 my parents and several other families including my mother's parents and some of her brothers and sisters traveled by team and wagon to Cardston, Alberta, Canada, to take up homesteads and become pioneers of that country. At that time that part of Canada was suffering a severe drought. After a few weeks they were so disappointed and discouraged that they returned home to Kaysville.


In the year 1894 the United States was going through a depression. Many men were out of work including my father. He was a plasterer and as no buildings were being erected, there was no work for him. So in July 1894 my parents decided to return to Canada and try it again. This time they traveled by train. I remember stopping over night in a hotel in Great Falls, Montana. We learned the next morning that the room we have occupied had been used by a family who was ill with measles. They had checked out the day we arrived. Soon after we arrived at our destination, I and my brother Harry and my sister Grace all came down with measles. We were staying at the home of my Uncle Samuel Layton.

My father took up a quarter section of land in Mountain View, a little village of six homes built of logs with dirt roofs about fifteen miles west of Cardston. There he built a log house of two rooms and a lean-to with a shingled roof and a brick chimney--the only house with such grandeur. We remained in Alberta, Canada three years, long enough to prove up on the homestead and then returned to Utah. It was there that I was baptized in a mountain stream that flowed through the tiny settlement. It took place 6 June 1897, and on that very day a boy was baptized in Kaysville who years later became my husband.


I attended school in a log building for a few months. This building was also used as a Ward Meeting house.

We returned to Kaysville in July 1897, just in time for the 24th of July celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the coming of the Pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley and just in time for my father to take part in the parade with the Kaysville Brass Band.

My father bought the home which my brother Ralph Cottrell now owns. That is where I lived until my marriage. I attended school in the old two room school house that my mother had attended which stood where the modern elementary school now stands in Kaysville. The first to the fourth grades were taught there and the others up to and including the eighth were taught in the old Academy Building. It was torn down some years ago.


I graduated from the eighth grade the 27 of May 1904. That was the extent of my education as far as school was concerned. I began the study of music under Myrtle Jones Phillips lst of June 190l. My brother Henry, or Harry as we called him, and I were her first pupils. I kept up my studies of music for a number of years also studying under Samuel Whittaker, the Ogden Tabernacle organist and E. David Mann of Bountiful.


I served as Ward organist for over thirty years. I have also been the organist for Mutual, Sunday School, Primary and Relief Society during that time. In 1910 I was called to serve as organist on the Primary Stake Board. I was on the board for about two years. In the fall of l946, I was called as organist of the Davis Stake Relief Society. I held that position for over eight years. I started teaching piano before I was married and have kept it up off and on ever since.

Durning World War II, I had four sons overseas at the same time. Two of them came home on the same ship, but they did not know it until they arrived home. They did not know the other was aboard. Those were anxious days, but the Lord blessed and protected them, and brought them home safely. The ship on which one of my boys was returning home took fire when it was hundreds of miles from shore, but fortunately it was extinguished.

I have always loved music and I play the organ and piano. I have sung in choirs and choruses. I am very fond of reading and I like to sew.


I have done temple work for many years. I have gone through all the seven temples in the United States.

Among the Church Leaders I have met are the following: Pres. Joseph F. Smith, Pres. George Albert Smith, Thomas E. McKay, Ezra Taft Benson and Hugh B. Brown. I have seen Pres. Theodore Roosevelt and Warren G. Harding.


I have had a number of faith promoting experiences. I will mention two of them. Many years ago when the mountain road was a narrow, winding trail with clumps of oak brush obstructing the view, my husband and I with our two little boys, Herman and Clifford, in our little old Ford car were riding along that road when suddenly my husband turned out of the road and into a clearing and stopped. As he did so a large car rushed by without any warning. I asked my husband if he knew that car was coming when he pulled off the road. He said, "No", a voice told him to pull over into the clearing. By heeding that warning, we were saved from a head on collision.

The other incident has to do with the same little boys. They were playing in the driveway at our home and I was at work on the back porch. I was very strongly impressed to bring those children to where I could see them while I worked. I obeyed this feeling although I thought they were safe. I had no sooner removed them when a runaway team of horses ran madly in from the street and trampled over the very spot where my children had been playing only a moment or two before.

These incidents have been a testimony to me that we must keep ourselves in tune with the Spirit of the Lord so that he can guide and protect us when danger is near.