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.

The Hennich Family & the Burwell Tornado of 1905

WILLIAM COOPER > AMOS COOPER > WILLIAM LLOYD COOPER > ELIZA COOPER m Charles Wesley Hennich

CW & Eliza Cooper Hennich
Eliza looks incredibly like her mother, Elizabeth Beams

As you might recall, Amos Cooper and his family were Quakers who went west to Illinois in the late 1820s. Their son William Lloyd Cooper and his wife, Elizabeth Beams of Kentucky, had a large family, most of whom ended up in Iowa, but some of whom, like the children of William's siblings, ended up in Nebraska.

Eliza was born on 11 Sep 1846 in Stephenson County, Illinois. On 04 Oct 1866, she married Charles Wesley Hennich in Spring Grove, Green County, Wisconsin. Hennich was a Pennsylvania native born 17 March 1847 in Centre County, where the Smulls and many of the settlers in Stephenson County had hailed from. Many Cooper/Smull relatives lived north and south of the Wisconsin/Illinois border during those days as well.

James Holtgrewe, July 2012

They couple had their first two children in Iowa. It appears as though they started out in Nebraska about 1877, but were in Missouri in 1878, where their fourth child was born, and then by 1880, were living in Wheeler, Nebraska.They would ultimately have six children.

In 1900, the Hennich family was living in Rockford Township, Garfield County, Nebraska outside of Burwell. I believe they were there by the mid-1880s. Burwell is interesting for a couple different things. For one, they laid out their roads uniquely. Instead of a grid system used in most towns, they had roads radiating out from the center of town. Additionally, the railroad ended at Burwell, so the town constructed a massive turntable so the train could be turned around at the end of each run. It still exists.

The Hennich family entrenched themselves in the life of Garfield County. Charles became a state representative in 1890 and appears to have served two years at the Statehouse in Lincoln for the 49th District. While he was serving, his oldest son James Harlin "Harley," then 18, he was thrown from his "fractious" horse and was then trampled. Surgery was performed, but his skull was crushed and he died several hours later.

Omaha World-Herald, Tuesday, January 27, 1891 

In 1905, a deadly tornado struck the town and surrounding area of Burwell, deeply impacting nearly every resident.

The Burwell Tribune in a supplement to the issue of Thursday, September 21st, tells the story of the disaster in the following language:

Burwell Town Square

"Friday, September 15, 1905, will be remembered for years by the present inhabitants of Burwell as the day of the great tornado. "Weather conditions that day were very peculiar. The day dawned clear and bright, but within an hour or two a dense fog enveloped the earth. This lifted and the sun shone brightly for a short period of time. Then fog again descended and obscured the landscape. The afternoon was hot and close; clouds black and threatening festooned the horizon to the north. "About six o'clock the death-dealing funnel-shaped cloud appeared to the northwest of town and in a few moments death and destruction were dealt out. "But few of the people of the town saw the awful creature of the elements. Those who did took hasty refuge in storm cellars. Others did not know that anything more serious than a rain storm was brewing till the alarm was sounded.

"The tornado seemed to form in The forks —the confluence of the Calamus and the Loup—just northwest of town a couple of miles. Its first work was on the farm of M. J. Scott, close to where the funnel formed, where several grain stacks were promiscuously scattered over the country. A cornfield near Scott's was demolished. Then the residence of Mr. Costello was razed. The family had gone to the cellar and thus escaped injury.

"C. W. Hennich's stable and outbuildings were next destroyed. Frank Hennich was in the stable when the storm struck it and attempted to get into the house when a flying timber struck him down, crushing his ribs and injuring him internally. He grittily crawled to a clump of bushes and waited for the passage of the storm. His mother and sister were frantically trying to get to his aid and were tossed about by the wind but happily escaped injury.

"The storm passed east from this point, demolishing stables, cribs and outbuildings at Kirby McGrew's, destroying part, of the Bartholomew house, occupied by Leslie Baker, then swinging a little south, it overturned John Dinnell's dwelling and razed Mike Saba's store.

"R. W. Hanna'a home, north of Saba's store about two blocks, a fine two-story dwelling, was totally destroyed—smashed, I guess would express it about as well as any detailed description. Mr. Hanna, his wife, their son, and Mrs. Hanna's mother were in the house at the time and how they escaped unharmed is nothing less than a miracle. The building was picked up bodily, carried a few feet and literally crushed into kindling wood. The four people were right in the midst of the wreckage and yet escaped without a scratch.

"The Haas house north of Hanna's, occupied by Ed. McGuire, escaped destruction, but the barn, outbuildings, trees, etc., were swept away. Martin McGuire lost a horse, wagon, harness, etc.

"J. H. Schuyler's fine home, a little south and cast of Hanna's, was perforated by flying timbers, racked and wrecked. Clothing which hung in a closet in the house was whisked out of the window and disappeared. The house is almost a total wreck. His stable was entirely blown away.

 To read the complete dramatic article, go here

Hennich losses were calculated at $500.00. The town's loss was over $50,000.

Charles died 03 Feb 1925 in Burwell. His wife Eliza died while residing with her daughter Hattie Hennich Evans, in Grand Island, 09 Jul 1937.