Louie B. Felt

Sarah Louise “Louie” Bouton Felt was the first general president of the Primary organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She was serving as the Primary president of the Salt Lake City Eleventh Ward when she was called in 1880. (Aurelia Spencer Rogers never served as general president, but she is recognized as founding Primary in 1878.) Felt continued to serve as her ward Primary president and gradually assumed full leadership for the general Primary. Eliza R. Snow, who was serving as general Relief Society president, helped grow Primary, traveling throughout the Latter-day Saint communities of the American West and both encouraging the organization of local Primaries and training presidencies.[1]

Throughout the years Felt served as president, she established such as creating The Children’s Friend magazine; holding annual general conferences for all Primary workers; oversaw the birth of the Primary Children’s Hospital; divided Primary children into junior, intermediate, and senior age groups; established the Primary Annual Fund; began annual reports from local units; held annual officers’ meetings; spread Primary into stakes and missions of the Church; emphasized teacher improvement. She asked to be released from her calling on October 6, 1925, due to her failing health. She was succeeded by her close friend of forty years, May Anderson. Felt died on February 13, 1928.

She was born on May 5, 1850, in South Norwalk, Connecticut. Her family moved to the Utah Territory in 1866 to gather with the Saints. On the journey west, she met Joseph H. Felt and married him on December 24, 1866. She never bore children but mothered the children of her husband’s second and third wives. He died in 1907.