Great Grandfather

My Great Grandfather, Charles Cooper, was the only father that my Dad knew.

Dad joined the Church shortly after my parents were married and they were sealed in the Temple before I was born. We attended church as a family until I reached junior high school when our family became holiday Mormons, no longer participating as members of the church.

When I was sixteen (almost seventeen) I developed an interest in religion, seeking to fill a void in my life. Through a miraculous conversion, I became active in church. Afterwards, my Dad asked me to get my Great Grandfather’s temple work done. He told me of a vision he had shortly after he was baptized, in which he saw his grandfather and knew exactly why his grandfather had come; he wanted to be baptized. The responsibility was passed on to me, since I was going to church.

This turned out to be a difficult responsibility. Great Grandpa Cooper’s birth information varied depending on which of his children you talked to. Most believed he was born and raised in Germany. While attending medical school he had a “falling out” with his family, boarded a ship for New York, never to see them again. Upon arriving in New York, he got drunk and joined the Cavalry. He was sent to Wyoming where he met his Scottish immigrant wife. They eventually ended up in Southern California where he ran a drug store and was a pharmacist, or chemist. When WWI was commencing Great Grandpa Cooper got into fights, probably brawls, defending the German position. Eventually he told people he was born in New York. He also decided to become five years younger. I know this because I tracked his whereabouts through census data. He became younger between 1910 and 1920. Maybe he had a secret chemical he never shared!

When I first submitted Great Grandpa Cooper’s information for Temple Ready it was rejected because I couldn’t prove the birth date or the location. Things changed; I no longer needed to prove all the details. In the meantime, some of his relatives provided a different last name. They claimed the original name was Cowper, spelling it to make sure I got it right. Cowper is an English name, not German. So we had him baptized as Charles William Cooper and Karl Wilhelm Cowper just to cover all the bases. (Sister Fulmer informed me that there is a German version of Cowper, it’s Kauper. So maybe that’ll give me a leg up on finding his parents.)

I complained about how hard Great Grandpa Cooper had made it to do his temple work. I said, on many occasions, “When I get to the other side I’m going to give him a real tongue lashing for making this so difficult, and making it impossible to find his parents.” More recently, as I’ve spent some time trying to do family history, I took a moment to complain once again that Great Grandpa Cooper had made things difficult and I was going to lecture him first chance I got. Then I felt the presence of Great Grandpa Cooper, standing right next to me, and he said, not audibly, but in pure thought, “Loretta, I didn’t know, I didn’t know.” My heart melted. I can’t be mad at him. I’ll just work harder. And maybe Heavenly Father will give him permission to help, after all He already let Great Grandpa Cooper talk to me.

Submitted by:
Loretta Farnsworth
Nevada City Ward