Maude McAllister, Family History Research Short Biography

Maude McAllister, Family History Research Short Biography

Today, 17 Oct 2020, I, Dylan Bailey, interviewed my Grandmother Alice Joy Riding about my 2nd Great Grandmother Agnes Maude McAllister. Agnes, known by most by her her middle name “Maude” and in more jovial moments by “Maude” with a long e sound at the end, was born 10 Nov 1888 in St. George, Washington, Utah to Joseph Warrington McAllister and Mary Ann Miller. She married John Cottam 27 Dec 1910, in the St. George Temple.

Of her living circumstances she wrote, they had “no water or electric lights. We had oil lamps and carried water from the ditch and stored it in barrels. Later, lights were installed but, we never did have water in the house though it was piped just outside.” Her education began at the age of nearly eight, but she was studious. There were only two years of High School then, but afterwards she worked diligently in summer school then crammed for 10 weeks to pass an exam which would allow her to teach.

By all accounts she was a sweet and jovial woman. One who “couldn’t bear… to see or hear anyone ridiculed or shunned in any way. It hurt [her]…”. She was taught, and taught her children, to live by prayer, and “to be honest, to speak the truth and not swear”. She was also recalled having cried a bemused “Horrors!” to the dramatic stories or jokes her husband and others told her. My Grandmother, Alice Joy, recalls “Maude”, speaking in jest of her given name, Agnes, that if her grandchildren were to name any of their children after her she would have no choice but to drown ‘em!

She was also a caring and careful woman. Recalled to have awoken often in the night to check on the warmth of her guests, to add or remove blankets from them, sometimes excessively. Though to the amusement of her guests, often her children or grandchildren.

Throughout her life she enjoyed music both played from records on her phonograph, and especially played on the piano and organ herself. In this endeavor I see her marked trait of persistence. She began playing at 15, her mother having bought a reed organ, that she studied hard, and found it fun. However, she recalls “Once… I was asked to sing in M.I.A (Mutual Improvement Association or Youth Night) and my sister thought I could accompany myself, so I tried. I made a miserable failure. Our President Jarvis said, when I got through, ‘Well, Maude has a lot of [stick-to-itiveness], anyway’ (a doubtful compliment)”. While some may have quit, thinking piano was not their calling, Maude “said then and there [She’d] be able to play the next time”. And never had a repeat poor performance again.

As it happens, it was while playing the organ of the St. George tabernacle that she heard of the untimely death of her beloved husband. My Grandmother recalls her saying that when she saw Will Brooks approaching, she knew something was wrong with John. This was not the first, though probably the worst, of the trials she was called to bear. Years earlier, she had born with patience the temporary absence of her husband as he served a mission. Then, suffered a sever illness of “nervousness” for which she was hospitalized in 1927, nine years before the loss of her husband. But of this last trial she wrote, “I knew I would never smile again. I didn’t think the Lord would take him from me because he knew how much I needed him, but he did…”. Though, I would wager these words turned out to be less than sage, for she would smile again. Yet, I believe all of us have, or will, come to know the emotion she carried when she wrote them.

She was not left helpless, however. “I did get courage from on high and though I felt I should have been the one to go instead of John, I know that the Lord knows best and moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform.” And, cared for on high she was. Particularly miraculous to me is “Johns Folly”, the plot of Land her husband purchased and planned to farm, to some mocking of the townsfolk. He was successful however, and upon his death his widow was able to lease the property to her brother-in-law and thereafter live on that income until the day she died. A sterling example of the fact that whatever the Lord calls us to pass through, he prepares us for.

I can only write a few things of the history and blessings of a person of whom I have never met but feel a keen kinship for at this moment. Luckily, her own, and some of her grandchildren’s accounts are kept remembering her more particularly.