Stephen Enoch Cooper (1853-1930)

COOPER, SQUIRES, WOOD, MOORE, WELLS, SHERMAN, ELBERT

Posted By: Dorian Myhre (email)
Date: 5/17/2021 at 16:53:12

From Nevada Evening Journal June 20, 1930 (page 1)

PIONEER MAXWELL MERCHANT, IS DEAD

PASSED AWAY AT IOWA LUTHERAN HOSPITAL LATE THURSDAY AFTERNOON

S. E. Cooper, 77, pioneer of the Maxwell community, died at the Iowa Lutheran hospital in Des Moines late Thursday afternoon, after an illness of about eight weeks. The illness of Mrs. Cooper, rather baffling at first, later provided to be unduland fever. Heart trouble resulting from this fever was the cause of his death.

There will be short funeral service at the home in Maxwell Sunday afternoon at 3:00, after which interment will be in the Maxwell cemetery.

In the death of Steve Cooper Story county loses one of its pioneer and outstanding merchants and most active citizens. An employee of the old pioneer firm of Baldwin & Maxwell, in Iowa Center, before there was such a town a Maxwell, he was a factor in the progress of the community from its very start.

Mr. Cooper was a native of Mercer county, Ill., where he was born March 7, 1853, a son of John and Rebecca Cooper. The family came to Iowa when Stephen was a lad of seven. First they located in Warren county, but came on over to Story county in 1864, locating in the then prosperous village of Iowa Center.

The first business venture of S. E. Cooper was that wagon maker, which trade he had learned from his father. He opened a shop in Iowa Center where he carried on business for several years.

In 1877 he had taken as a bride Miss Nellie Squires of the same community and to them were born seven children five of whom survive the father and mother.

With the coming of the Milwaukee railroad and the establishment of the new and more modern village to the south of Iowa Center, Mr. Cooper moved to Maxwell and was for a time engaged in the general mercantile business there with the firm of Baldwin and Maxwell.

Later he purchased interests of his partners and opened the retail furniture store known as S. E. Cooper & Company and later S. E. Cooper & Sons.

Mrs. Nellie Squires-Cooper died in 1892 and the children surviving this union are Mrs. C. B. Wells of Maxwell, Hugh Cooper of Dallas, Texas, Mrs. Sid Sherman and Guy Cooper of Maxwell and Mrs. C. J. Ebert of 755 Tenth street, Nevada.

In 1893 Mr. Cooper was married to Mrs. Mattie J. Wood* of Iowa Center and to this union there was born one son, Forrest Cooper, now of Maxwell. The wife and the six children survive the husband and father, and had been with him during the last hours of his long, active life.

For many years Mr. Cooper was very active in Odd Fellow circles of the state and had been identified with other fraternal organizations.

Politically he was a republican and had always taken an active interest in public affairs, national and state as well as local. He had served upon the town council, was a member of the school board from the organization of the district and was identified with every public spirited move in connection with the community.

*SUBMITTER'S NOTE: Mattie J. Cooper was born Martha A. Moore, daughter of Lot R. Moore and Mary E Glenn. She married (1) Cory Wood 3 November 1872 in Story County, Iowa and (2) Stephen Enoch Cooper on 28 February 1893 in Iowa Center, Story County, Iowa.