CASE SOLVED: Susan L Cooper

Amos Cooper > Chalkley Jared Cooper > Susan L Cooper

Bellingham, WA 1910

I complained recently about how difficult it is to trace women "back in the olden days" because of marriages and the loss of their original identity. In hunting down the children of Chalkley Jared Cooper, this really impacted my work.

Chalkley "Charley" Cooper and his wife Margaret Ann Thompson married in 1840 in Crawford County, Illinois and had nine children. They are, in order:

Capt Robert T Cooper > Emma Brenizer

Mary Ellen Cooper > Jacob M Fisher

Barton Gourley Cooper > (1) Mary Magdaline Bollinger (2) Alice Bollinger

Joseph L Cooper > Carrie L Miles

Margaret Anna "Annie" Cooper > George Emrick 

Amy/Ann Cooper (mystery to be solved)

Susan Lavica Cooper > William May "May" Jones

Chalkley Jared "Jay" Cooper, Jr. > Minnie Janet Kaup

Harlin Cooper (year of birth unknown, died young before 1880)

I found very little to support Susan's existence until I found an obit for Joseph L Cooper. It said he was survived by "a sister, Susie Jones Bellingham of Washington." Hmm. 

Then, I found the Washington Death Records. They list an incorrect first name for her father, but the last name was correct. A person who put a family tree on Ancestry had the wrong first name for her husband which sent me down a road to futility. Doing some tricky backwards detecting, I finally found, and definitely confirmed Susan's story and her later lineage. The gap in information from 1881 to 1899 due to the infamous missing 1890 US Census could be overcome! If she hadn't lived in Washington during those missing years, where was she? She wasn't back home in Stephenson County. Several of her brothers went to Nebraska. Maybe they were close by. 

Susan was born in 1853 in Stephenson County, Illinois. She moved west sometime prior to 1900 when she was both married to W. May Jones and living in Hiawatha, Nebraska. I also found reference they had also lived in Jewell County, Kansas in the 1880s - her brother Barton had also lived there in the late 1870s/early 1880s. They had three children in Jewell: 

Lyman Llewellyn Jones

Edward James Jones

Ira Truman "Casey" Jones

In about 1904, the family arrived in the wild west mining, lumber, fishing/canning town of Bellingham, Washington, where they settled, with the exception of their brief stint in Chilliwack New Westminster, British Columbia. Susan was a piano tuner and lived until 1934, when she died at the age of 81. Her husband May either sold or built sewing machines and farmed during his time in Canada and died prior to Susan on 15 Aug 1931 in Bellingham. Her children survived her. She died 16 Sep 1934.

Ira T. Jones was the fire chief of Bellingham under two administrations and served as assistant chief between political appointments. He retired in 1943. He had a giant cacti collection, which he began selling off in 1943. In 1946, he and his wife bought a beautiful new home. They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1970. Ira died in 1978 in Bellingham, and Iona, his Icelandic wife, died in 1990 in Seattle.

Ira named his oldest child Clayton Cooper Jones, further reinforcing the theory that Susan had been found. Ira died in 1978.

I have more items to provide as proof, but will be posting these privately. I'm happy to answer any questions about this research. Fill out the contact form on this page and I'll get back to you!