Alfred J Cooper, A Restless Guy

AMOS COOPER > JOHN L COOPER > ALFRED JAMES COOPER

Marshall, Oklahoma

Alfred was the second of John and Asenath (Maples) Cooper’s nine children. He strikes me as a guy who just had the worst kind of timing. In September of 1857, he married Marian "Angie" Angeline Willard in Will County, Illinois.

In 1859, he trekked without his wife west to California. Unfortunately, he returned without having found his fortune - he got to the party very late and came back half-starved. He packed up the family and moved to Fairbank, Buchanan County, Iowa in 1866. They stayed for several years there, but on they would go. Their next stop was in Rooks County, Kansas, located in western Kansas. Though the boundaries of the county had been drawn in 1867, the first settlers did not arrive until 1871. The great blizzard of 1873 and the locust siege of 1874 made things very difficult for settlers. Upon the arrival of the Coopers in 1879, they set about building their sod house full of leaks, bugs, and snakes. Even though they avoided the scourge of grasshoppers in 1874, lesser bug infestations filled the sky several times during their life there, leaving disaster in its wake. Lina reportedly left school and was “sent out”  to work in the homes of  people in town to help with housekeeping and childcare at a rate of $0.50 per day to help the family make ends meet.  The Cooper were struggling mightily due to all kinds of issues including drought and commodities prices. They relocated once again, this time to Beattie in Marshall County, northeast of Rooks by a few hours in 1883.

In 1891, while still in Beattie, Alfred’s daughter “Bird” was engaged to Peter Bender. Bender, on the

board of the Life School, had the job to announce the results of ballots. He noted one evening that there were more votes cast than people voting, so he jokingly announced it. The suspected offender, an illiterate named Lem Goldsberry, took issue with the light-hearted announcement and attacked Bender. Bender was able to subdue him but during Goldsberry’s attempt to claw Bender’s eyes, Bender bit him. The finger became infected and it was later amputated.

The feud heated up further and culminated on December 14th:

Goldsberry drove past the Alfred Cooper home in his spring wagon, taking his two boys and a little Harry boy home from school. A few minutes later Pete rode into the Cooper yard to visit with Alfred and Bird Cooper. Pete was going to marry Bird Cooper. “I saw Lem back there,” Pete explained, “and he seemed to be in an ugly mood. I think I’ll wait here and give him time to get up the road.” He soon rode on, giving Bird a special good-bye smile and left. But Lem was waiting and had turned his team across the road to block Pete’s passage. The Harry boy recalled later that Lem drew his gun as Bender approached. As he dismounted from his horse, Pete pleaded, “Lem, Lem, don’t shoot.” Lem’s four fingers tensed and tightened on the handle of his gun. Pete turned to his horse. A shot rang out and Pete fell face forward to the ground with blood oozing from a gaping wound in the back of his head. Lem had then driven on to his home, satisfied that the loss of his finger had been avenged. Then, accompanied by his oldest son, he drove to Marysville and gave himself up to Sheriff Bentley. He did five years and left prison an embittered man, shunned by his community and his own family because he’d besmirched the family name.

 http://www.marshallco.net/beattie/hisstory1.html

Lina Cooper Debo

Noted Oklahoma historian Angie Debo's favorite aunt was Bird. In the book, Angie Debo: Pioneering Historian, University of Oklahoma Press by Shirley A Leckie, 2000, Angie's mother, Alfred's daughter Lina, was having none of Bird's dramatic nonsense over the death of Peter, which was spurred on by Alfred's wife Angie.

"Twenty-eight-year old Bertella Rosina, better known as Bird, was Angie's favorite aunt. Following her fiance's murder seven years earlier, Bird had been photographed, at Grandmother Angeline Cooper's insistence, in a black dress and widow's veil. Ever since then, Bird had seen herself as the "heroine of a romantic novel." Lina, impatient with her mother's and her sister's theatrics, informed Angie that their actions were foolish and arose from Angeline Cooper's attachment to "sentimental stories" that exaggerated the "romantic strain in her nature" - to everyone's misfortune."

Alfred & Angie's seven children were:

Elmer Cooper
Angie Debo Collection
Oklahoma State University

Alfred D., who you can read about here. He resided in Michigan for most of his life.

Lina, who married Edward Debo and can be read about here and here. These were the parents of Oklahoma historian Angie Debo.

Lieu Forrest was born while they lived in Iowa in March 1868. He married Grace Decker. They had three children: Ralph, Lewis, and Alfred James II Lieu and family also came to Oklahoma and he died in Garfield in 1940. His wife survived until 1944.

Ida Louise was born 12 Jul 1869 in Fairbank, Iowa as well. She married Zebedee Halsted of Decatur, Illinois in about 1893. They had four children: Mattie, Nellie, Pearlie, and Burton.Ida died 21 Aug 1953 in Independence, Jackson, Missouri. She lost Zeb 02 Oct 1924 in Independence.

Lieu Cooper
Angie Debo Collection, Oklahoma
State University

Bertella "Bird" Cooper also went with the family to Oklahoma. After the death of her fiance, she never married. She died in 1924 in Garfield.

Elmer J. Cooper was born 14 Oct 1874. He died in 1947 in Marion, Washington. It's believed he got to Marion in the 1920s. He was buried in Garfield, Oklahoma.

Nettie was born in Nov 1879. She remained single from the looks of things and spent much of her life (from at least 1913) in Oklahoma City boarding houses as she worked as a public stenographer. I haven't pinned down her death, but she was alive at least through 1933.

It looks like Alfred and Angie did not live together at the end of their lives. Both are listed as widowed in the 1910 census, with Angie living with Elmer and Bird in Marshall, Oklahoma and Alfred living in Major, Oklahoma with his daughter Ida Halsted and family. Angie died in 1915. In 1920, Alfred is living in Marshall with the Debo's. He dies in 1928.