Margaret Cooper

Obituary of Margaret Elizabeth Cooper Margaret S. Cooper Margaret S. Cooper died peacefully in her sleep at Portage Pointe on Friday, August 7, 2015, just a month shy of her 97th birthday. She was born on September 8, 1918, in Mount Clemens, Michigan, the third daughter of Matilda Coppersmith and John M. Simmons. On December 22, 1940, she was engaged to Edwin L. Cooper after a courtship lasting five and one-half years, and they were married on December 20, 1941, at the Utica Methodist Church. They lived in loving companionship for another 68 years until Edwin died in 2009. In June 1940, she received her bachelors degree in education from Michigan State Normal College in Ypsilanti and she went on to teach elementary school for a number of years in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. As a teacher, she was smart but patient,and kind but strict: despite her petite stature (just 5 feet tall with a shoe size of 4), she could quell an unruly student with a single look. She said that it was important that students learn to read well, so she always read books to them. Reading was her favorite leisure activity throughout her life, and she passed on her love of books to her children as well as to her students. She and Edwin, with their two children Marilyn (born in 1945) and John (born in 1948), lived in Ann Arbor and Gaylord, Michigan; Madison, Wisconsin; and State College, Pennsylvania, until 2006 when Margaret and Edwin moved to the Bluffs in Houghton. They traveled extensively in the United States (including Alaska and Hawaii) and Canada and visited Finland, Russia, China, Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.Margaret was an accomplished seamstress, making clothes for herself and the rest of the family too, and she designed and completed numerous quilts and cross-stitch pieces. She also created beautiful flower gardens in the rock walls that Edwin built around their house in State College. She loved playing with her grand-dogs Dipsy, Pegeen, and Scout and visiting Marilyns camp on Little Traverse Bay. She had a sweet smile for everyone and a hot temper on occasion. She will be sorely missed by all of her family and friends.Preceding her in death were her parents and her husband, her three sisters, Evelyn Wyatt, MarionDawson Burke, and Kathryn Crippen; in-laws Irving (Pete) and Lillian Cooper, Gerald and Alma Cooper, Beatrice (Cooper) and Anthony Quandt, Mel Ayres, and Louis Mundy. Surviving are her daughter Marilyn Cooper of Houghton, John Cooper of Constantia, NY, in-laws Evelyn (Cooper) Ayres and Anita (Cooper) Mundy, and numerous nephews and nieces.Marilyn and John would like to thank all the staff and aides at the Bluffs for providing a welcoming home and especially Cari Stromer and all the Portage Health aides who so lovingly cared for Margaret and sat with her and read to her in the years following Edwins death.In lieu of other expressions of sympathy, donations could be given to the Alzheimers Association at www.alz.org.The Memorial Chapel and Plowe Funeral Homes have been assisting with arrangements. To send condolences to Margarets children, please visit memorialchapel.net. To send flowers to the family of Margaret Cooper, please visit Tribute Store