#52ANCESTORS - WEEK 16 - Begins with a Vowel

All three of my beautiful, talented daughters-in-law's names begin with a vowel - Alicia, Erin and Angelie; two granddaughters also. I have a great-great-great grandmother on my paternal side Isabella Clayton Short who I am fascinated with because we know so little about her even though her family was such a large part of the beginnings of the Salt Lake Valley with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I wrote a little bit about her mother here - Alice Hardman. 

Let's get to know my maternal great-grandmother, Erminnie Rozella Layton (b: 22 Dec 1870; d: 10 Aug 1959), who passed away three years before I was born.  

Erminnie

From my mother's history:  "My mother's parents (Grandpa Charles and Grandma Erminie Cottrell) owned a grocery store on Mead Avenue (11th South between West Temple and First West [Salt Lake City]).  Along with the store there was a small home behind it and a bigger home just east of it.  We lived in the small home for a while.  It had only one bedroom....Grandpa would also let us play like we were grocery shopping in the store as long as [no] customers were there.  I remember people bringing ration stamps in to the store during WWII.  There were coins that were called mils - ten mils to a penny, but I don't remember us having to go without.  Grandpa would have coal sent to the homes of widows.  I remember early summer mornings sitting on the back steps of the little house and Grandma bringing me out a piece of toast with sugar on it.  Then Grandpa would let me go to the farmers' market with him while he picked out the fresh produce for the store....During the Depression, people would come to the grocery store and sign a book saying what they owed and leave with their goods.  Years later, Uncle Chick's oldest son, Bill, told us that he had found a book of all the people who owed Grandpa but had never paid.  Jack, Bill's brother, tells the story that someone came years later and gave to Bill $1,000 that was owed to Grandpa...[Later] Grandpa and Grandma Cottrell lived on "I" Street and 6th Avenue ... so Bobbie and I used to walk up and visit with them a lot."  

Mom remembers that her mother would have Grandpa and Grandma Cottrell to dinner every Sunday.  Living that close to them meant that they were just always around, part of their daily lives.  When mom and her sister, Bobbie, would go visit them when they lived in the Avenues, Grandpa would be sitting in his chair and most of the visiting was done with him, probably while Grandma puttered around.  

Erminnie, Charles, Barbara and Maida

Back row: Margie Odell, Barbara Warburton, Maida Cottrell, Wynona Kirkham, Leah Perry, Mrs. Gittens, Mickie Cottrell, Maida Jean Burt holding Patti;
Front row: Laurie Warburton (Vicki Burt in front of her), Grandma Cottrell, Grandpa Cottrell, Margie Gittens, Lynne Warburton.