ohn Gerard Cotter was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 16, 1906, of parents who had emigrated from Ireland in 1902. At the age of 18, in 1924, he enlisted in the U. S. Army and was stationed in Seward from 1924 through 1930 as part of the U. S. Army Signal Corps, which furnished communications within Alaska and to and from Alaska. He was transferred to Anchorage in 1930 and helped to establish the Signal Corps office here.

Dorothea L. Davis arrived in Alaska with her parents, Charles A. and Gertrude B. Davis, prior to her senior year in high school. Since the family did not live in Anchorage, but on a homestead which was so remote that no school was available, Dorothea took a full-time night job with the Alaska Telephone Company to pay for a room in the Seward Hotel so she could complete her education.

John Cotter met Dorothea in Anchorage, and they were married in 1931. In 1934, John was transferred to Seattle, and he retired from the Army with the rank of Captain in 1935, having completed twenty-one years as a radio operator, cable operator, Morse code operator and cryptologist. He and Dorothea retired in Seattle, Washington where John passed away in 1955. Dorothea moved to Hillsboro, Oregon, to be near her daughter, Joan Goodman.