Although Fay initially remembers responding to her selection as one of this year’s Honored Pioneers for the 4th of July parade with the thought “well wait a minute, that’s for old people,” she and her husband Steve have graciously decided to accept the award any way, despite their tender years.  Someone, after all, has to set an example for the other young folks who may follow along in their trail.  

Beyond being active and vital members of the community at large, the Cottles have also been deeply involved in the preservation of the Malad Valley’s history in a variety of ways, from working to establish the Pioneer Museum in its current form, to initiating an accurate map of the Malad City Cemetery and its graves.  This year’s pioneers are truly part of making Oneida County what it is today and preserving what it has been over time.

“Well, I was born and raised here in the county—I was born in Holbrook.  Steve was raised in Cache Valley, although he was born in Stone,” Fay says.  

Steve nods.  “The old home is still standing, though it isn’t used for a home any more.  It was a nice home in its day.  My dad always had a nice garden.  We had a good well, and travelers going by would always stop to get a good drink form our well.”

As would have been the case in a small area, their fathers knew each other before the two were born.  Fay comes from a family with eleven kids.  She is the eleventh.  “I always tell people that’s why I don’t have an “E” on the end of my name—my parents ran out of letters.”  

Steve is seventh out of eight kids.  “Our being the end of big families meant that we had lots of nieces and nephews.  In fact, when we got married, it just so happened that both Fay and I had 40 nieces and nephews each.”

“I used to try and keep track of all the babies but it finally just got overwhelming,” Fay says.

Steve tells a story about a time he was writing out a check for gas in Hyde Park over in Logan.  As he handed the check over to the cashier, he asked whether they would like to see some ID.  The cashier said, “No, I think you’re okay, Uncle Steve.”

The couple lives right on Bannock Street in the home Fay grew up in.  The home was purchased in 1940 by Fay’s parents, and it was built in 1920.  The two of them live in the house and its seven bedrooms.  “We’re comfortable there, us and our dog,” Fay says.  Lacy spends her days looking out the window at the town going about its day from the nice, central location in the middle of town.  

Steve graduated from North Cache High, and Fay graduated from Malad High School.  At that time, she went through from kindergarten to graduation with mostly the same group of fellow students around her.  In fact, when she was born (at the old hospital, which was torn down many decades ago) there were five other mothers with babies in the hospital during her stay, who became a major part of her school cohort.  She still has one brother in town, and another in Logan. 

While explaining that they aren’t really old enough for the pioneer honor, Fay admits they are slowing down a bit.  “I thought I was the Energizer Bunny,” Fay says, “but it just hit me in the leg.”  She receives injections to help with her leg mobility.  Steve is dealing with macular degeneration.  Typically, though, the couple takes it in stride and with great humor—“It’s literally the blind leading the lame with us,” Fay says.  “And I’m the driver.”

“I thought about that the other day,” Steve says. “And I asked her, wait a minute—since you’re the driver, if you die how am I going to get to your funeral?” 

“We laugh a lot,” Fay says.  “And that’s what keeps us going.  You have to laugh to keep from crying.  We don’t sit around and feel sorry for ourselves.  We have two daughters we get to see pretty often.”  Stephanie and Colleen (named for Fay’s father Colen) live in Utah, but visit regularly. The Cottles also have one grandchild with three kids of her own, so they also have three great-grandkids.

Both Fay and Steve come from big families, and as happened to many during the middle twentieth century, there was a certain amount of family tragedy as a result.  In both cases, the two lost siblings young.  “It happened a lot, especially with those big families,” Steve says.  

Since their younger days, the couple notes that some things have changed a lot, while others have stayed the same.

“It’s a lot noisier than it used to be.  A lot more traffic,” Fay says.

“It used to be that people stayed in town a lot for entertainment.  I think we still have a lot going on for a small town—like the car show, and the Welsh Festival,” Steve says.

“Of course the Welsh Festival,” Fay says.  “I don’t have a drop of Welsh blood, but I’m Jean’s friend and I help out every year.  I usually wear my little shamrock as well,” Fay laughs, acknowledging her Scotch-Irish roots.

“One thing the town has kept,” Steve says, “is a good volunteer group.  Fay has worked in the museum for years and years.  I think she was the spark that got the museum here.  There was a lady who kept material up on the top of the old hospital, but Fay got a place that could handle the stuff better, and that’s where it is today.  And she did a lot of work getting that going.”

“And he did a lot of help,” Fay adds.  

“That museum has got a lot of crayon portraits, and it’s quite a collection.  I can’t remember the occasion but Fay had to take a class on crayon portraits and she had to take her staff.  So, I was her staff,” Steve said.

“I like to tell stories to the people who come through the museum.  I had one man come through with his kids, and I pointed them to the portraits, and I said ‘That man was a polygamist.  There’s a wife on each side, and I want you to notice that wife number one is not smiling, but wife number two has a little smirk.’ And the man said, ‘That was my great grandfather.’  I said ‘I am so sorry, I just made that up.’  And he looked at me and laughed, ‘You’re probably right.’”

“The city and the county tried to pay her for her work, and she refused.  She told them to just put it back into the museum,” Steve said.

One of the most impressive things the Cottles have contributed to the history of Malad is a map of the cemetery with the locations of the graves.  Steve created a map of the cemetery in AutoCAD and attached it to a spreadsheet to fully plot out the cemetery.  

At the time, Fay was working at the Family History Center, and a local man had made a list of the names in the cemetery, which were on 3x5 cards.  People would come into the Center and ask for information about grave locations.  Steve’s map made the process much easier.

Fay began the process of double checking the list the city had, which had been generated by students at the high school in beginning typing class.  “By the time I got to the end of one row, there were so many errors I knew we’d have to check them all,” she says.

Every morning for several years, Fay walked up to the cemetery and confirmed the headstone information, updating and correcting it as needed.  “She spent so much time up there that one day she mentioned to our granddaughter that she was going up to the cemetery to clean headstones, meaning Fay’s parents’ stones, and our granddaughter asked ‘you mean ALL of them?’”

The map and records of the cemetery originally generated by the Cottles are managed by the city, though Fay still has access to them as well.

“I feel honored to be asked to be the Pioneers by the city.  We’ve lived her forty-three years since we moved back, when our children were still in elementary school,” Fay says.  

“The city has done very well.  In the summer they have concerts, and a lot of people love to come to Malad on the Fourth.  There are some changes to a lot of businesses.  Even though the nature of the things has changed, I think the attitude of being a close community has stayed the same over time, and is still that way today,” Steve says.  “Even though it’s not that big, a lot of people like to come here.  It’s kind of center.  People have their choice between Tremonton and other places, but people seem to like to come here, and I understand why.”    

Fay was awarded Idaho’s Esto Perpetuo award for her contributions to preserving the history and culture of the state and specifically the Oneida county area, and the city joins the state in recognizing the amazing contributions of this remarkable pioneer couple.