James Dennis Cooper

December  16th, 1948 September  8th, 2024
7608 Navarro Pl, Austin, Texas 78749
James Dennis Cooper

Death is just a natural part of life"

My dad Jim, to my query when I was 6.

Obituary

James Cooper passed away on September 8, 2024 from complications of lung cancer with family at his side.  His battle with cancer began in 2016 in the form of colon cancer and he beat that twice, only to have cancer return in his lungs in 2023.  Through it all he was tough and kept his sense of humor, just the way he was with everything else in life. 
  Jim was born in Erie, Pennsylvania on December 16, 1948.  He didn't like cold weather and hated that his birthday was always in the dead of winter.  His goal was to live in warm places and he loved going to beaches. He enjoyed playing outside as a kid around the Beechwoods/Falls Creek area of Pennsylvania, where both of his parents families had been living since their arrival from Ireland in the 1830's.  The family cemetery was close by on a hill that the kids loved playing around on and sledding in the winters.  Dad and his family always had an appreciation for their family tree and the old stories of the Scottish, Irish and Welsh ancestors were retold on many occasions.  His life long friend, Carl Anderson, also came from the Falls Creek area and has family in the same cemetery as ours in Beechwoods. The Anderson family have always been close to dad and his family, especially since Carl and my father both moved to the northern Virginia area in the 1970's.
  Dad attended Clarion college in PA, where he met his future wife, Doreen Francis.  The two left college early to elope, surprising their parents with a marriage certificate and a baby on the way.  In 1968 the United States' involvement in the Vietnam war was in full swing and dad naturally did not want to go when he had a new family.  He signed up for the army, knowing that his draft was inevitable and was placed in South Carolina for basic training. My mom followed him to army bases in GA and VA and lived off base, where dad could visit when allowed.  My father strategically did everything in his power to not leave the states during his enlistment and signed up for classes and special training to keep him tied here.  He joined the 82nd Airborne and was proud of his rank and loved jumping out of airplanes.  He completed 33 jumps and had to learn to land with all his gear on as well as fold his own parachutes.  He signed up for Officer Candidate School and graduated, he said it was one of the hardest experiences of his life.  I remember him telling me that out of over 200 men that signed up for OCS, only about 25 of those made it to graduation.  OCS did keep him from getting shipped to Vietnam, so he was glad to do that instead.  After his required time in the army was up, dad was not interested in having a career in the army, regardless of his officer status and instead moved with his family to Alexandria, Virginia, where I was born.
  Jim worked as a bricklayer in Virginia while taking classes in community college while Doreen worked as a secretary in Washington, DC.  He was very proud of the things he built with brick that you can still see all around northern VA and DC.  He said he would always have work doing masonry since everything around there was built with brick.  He learned how to do some intricate brickwork, styles that most modern day bricklayers didn't know how to do.  When Washington DC went through a revitalization period in the 1990's, many old townhouses built a century or so before made of brick were being renovated and needed brick replaced, dad was in demand and said he didn't have to advertise to get business.
  Dad wanted to study architecture in college and live in a warmer climate, so along with my mom, Willy and me, moved to the Houston area of Texas in 1979 and attended the University of Houston.  For a few years in the 1980's he worked for an architecture firm, but had a grueling schedule with deadlines and more travel than he wished for, as I recall.  In the late 80's, the recession hit Houston quite hard and dad was laid off, along with many Houstonians at that time and had difficulty finding work.  He and my mother were separated by then, so he returned to northern Virginia/Washington DC on his own and resumed masonry work in 1989. His son Willy joined him soon after and lived on his own nearby, while I remained in Houston with my mom to finish high school.  Dad enjoyed working outside and being his own boss and I think this suited him much more than the office lifestyle.  He liked to boast that he never had allergy issues because he was always outside and that people who spent all their time inside seemed to be the folks who needed allergy medicines.  Ever the tough guy, dad liked to lift weights and do headstands.  He always felt that exercise was the key to staying healthy and would even go work out after laying brick all day.
   He was an extremely intelligent man and loved reading books probably more than anything else.  He had a huge collection of books, mostly about history, civilizations, wars, and biographies.  While not a particularly religious man, he enjoyed reading about theology and their origins- no matter the religion, he was interested in them all. He liked engaging with the religious folks that came to the door and impressing them with his knowledge of their beliefs.
  Jim was gifted in gardening too.  In Virginia in the 1970's we had a big yard that dad tilled up and grew lots of vegetables.  In Texas we had a big yard when we lived in Splendora, and the corn my parents grew was the best I've ever had.  He continued growing vegetables in Virginia too, as well as hibiscus flowers.  His favorites were lots of lettuces, green beans and snap peas.  He had a prolific fig tree at the house in Springfield, Virginia and even grew big watermelons in the yard.  He also enjoyed cooking and baking, his Christmas time fruitcakes were famous. Another passion was photography, dad had some nice cameras and especially loved photographing the cherry blossoms around the Jefferson Memorial in DC.
  Dad slowed down in 2016, when he was diagnosed with colon cancer. It was removed with surgery but reappeared one year later and he had to have another surgery to remove the large tumor and it was after this experience that he was no longer able to move around as well as he used to.  He mostly retired from physical labor work, only doing some small jobs.  I was living with him at this time with my daughter and we both wanted to get back to Texas to escape the cold winters.  Dad enjoyed his time with us the last 6 years in Texas and he was close to his granddaughter, teaching her to play golf during the pandemic.  Up until a few months ago he was also teaching her to play pool, something he used to do with me when I was her age.
  Dad was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer in 2023 and started regular chemotherapy treatments.  He still believed strongly in exercise to feel better and would attend exercise classes for 50+ at the local recreation center, where he made friends.  In July this year, his health took a turn for the worse and he was hospitalized for pneumonia for two weeks.  Upon returning home he wasn't able to recover very well and required oxygen. Chemo treatments were suspended during this time because of pneumonia.  He was hospitalized again in late August, requiring more oxygen than what he could get at home and it was apparent that the lung cancer had returned in a big way since halting chemotherapy.  
Dad passed away in the hospital at 5 pm on September 8th with myself, my mom Doreen, and his granddaughter Maitilda holding his hands while his son Willy was on the phone and we talked to him as he left us.  I think he could hear everything we said and knew how much we loved him. Rest in peace Dad.

Text box


Everyone is invited to add photos, videos and your memories of Jim.  I put all the good photos I can find right now and will add more as they surface in time.

Gallery


Videos

Memory wall

Post your condolences or share your Memories.


October 19, 2024
I never did get in to my father's work, as a shit head I hated getting up at 5 am on a Saturday to go brickwork. I hated being the grunt mixing the mortar and carrying the bricks.
As I look back now I relished it in my adult years. Any time I was in town visiting him I would always help him out on his jobs carrying those 50 lb cement bags and and carrying the bricks and what other , I really got to know him as an artist, an artist of masonry .my love of music I have a natural gift of seeing how chords and notes should be together, I see colors and textures when writing a song Dad had that same talent in construction of what he was building. It's truly an art. He was a free Mason in the trusist form.
In 2010 I was at wits end my life was getting complicated due to life it's self, I called my sister Cindy for help and thankfully I got back up DC and spent the next four months with Dad. A very good time :) I went to work with him and during the evening we would finish each other's crossword word in the Washington post paper. And during that time I wrote most of my songs for an album I did with my band Burning Dinosaurs up in Anchorage Alaska.
My father I always felt I didn't know him until that time period. But I guess that shitty teenager I was left the fucking building.
Here's a remembrance I that I have of my dad and I.
Dad woke me up @ 4:30 in morning to go to his job site , I was 16 I think?? Any way he grabbed his golf clubs. His job site was at the Woodlands TX a very high rich part that was being constructed homes and a brand new golf course. The very one that Houston does the US open at.
Here's my favorite moment of dad and I, it's before sunrise we are playing golf on this newly built coarse , can barely see where the ball goes, mulligans everytime and putted into three holes before the rich people started their game. Dad says to me " we just played on a soon to be famous golf course "
William Cooper
October 18, 2024
Jim Cooper. Brilliant man. I will miss him greatly. My three favorite Jim stories:

1. Jim was a brilliant mason. He helped me with numerous jobs: Pouring staircases, building cinder block walls, and paving things. He wouldn't let me pay him, but I always provided the Rolling Rocks. He would bury the empty beer bottles in the walls and foundation of whatever he was building. We would joke that one day, a thousand years from now, anthropologists would be excavating the area and wonder who the magnificent builder was, who they would call, "Rolling Rock Man." I still think that will happen one day.
2. When Jim visited Cindy and I in Alaska. We went for a hike to Upper Lake. A tough climb, but somehow we drank beer and he smoked cigars the whole way up. when we got back home, I watched him disassemble a stone patio, build a wood-fire oven out of it, cook a lamb's leg, then reassemble the patio better than it was before. For the next two weeks, Saphire and Jersey (Cindy's dogs) spent most of their days licking the porch. Nobody knew why. I let the mystery resonate among the hippies without saying a word.
3. When I was about 16. I thought I was strong. I lifted weights. Jim came down one afternoon after working with my dad all day and asked if he could get a bench press in. He started with the most I could lift. Then he said add a little more. Then add a little more. Now, if you've ever seen the movie "Unbreakable", Bruce Willis realized he was a superhero when he asked his son to keep adding weight, and adding weight, and no matter what he put on, he could lift it. I think of the scene in that movie, because Jim had me add all the weights I owned, 315 pounds, and he lifted all of them. As he was asking me to put more on, I got more and more uncomfortable, because what he was doing seemed impossible and I was worried he'd hurt himself. He didn't. He lifted it all. That's when I realized he was a superhero too.

Jim Cooper. Rolling Rock Man, Philosopher, Superhero, I will miss you, Sir.
Mark Anderson
October 12, 2024
It's already been posted what I (we ) know and love about my father, so instead I'd like to add some stories that are more of day to day growing up thing.. you know, like me being a shitty teenager
So Dean and I were out on a double date (Dean being my best friend) dad was gone on his business trip so I took his Jeep. We picked up the girls and went to Porter TX, here's where things get funny, Dean gets a bunch of wine coolers and I get two cases of beer. Somehow Dean gets shoved from behind and drops the wine coolers and spills upon the floor and shit happens, I'm the next in line and pay for the beer and run out, Dean is arguing that the lady should pay for the wine coolers and is trying to pick up the ones that weren't broken,
I'm running in to grab Dean saying LETS GO.. We were 17 BTW,
Along story short our dates got home in time for curfew. It was later when Dean and I turned on to Hill and Dale road where we lived and the Patton Village police ran us off the road lights blaring into the ditch and fucked up dad's Jeep front end. Bent the hell out of it. Now I was scared.. a very long story short we were let go after the cops stole our beer and said ' make nothing of it' . So I lied to Dad about how I mashed up his Jeep the next day by saying there was car coming in my lane and swerved and crashed in the ditch. It wasn't until 2010 that I told him the truth, he just laughed and said why didn't you tell me back then? I knew you were lying those cops were thieves, they kept try to stop me and catch me on stuff because I was going to Houston and back.
It was about then we were both older and I could tell him things, not effed up shit but a father and son fun things.
A moment, a month and a few days has gone by, I sit in my backyard and look at the nite time sky and all can think is I miss you Dad, I really miss you

William Cooper
October 9, 2024
Over seventeen years of lives shared, so many memories blending together. Jim always liked a little bit of derring-do in his life, living a little on the edge. When we were first married he was a union journeyman industrial steel painter. What that meant was that he walked on top of the high steel bridges over Pittsburgh rivers, or steel girders on the power plant they were building just outside of Indiana, Pa., so high it dominated the landscape for miles around. Since I get queasy going above the second rung of a ladder, this was unimaginable to me, and I could not believe how he could do it. He once told me that he sometimes had a falling dream and when he was up on the steel and had that sense of deja vu, he would sit down on the girder until the feeling passed.
Vietnam loomed over our heads like a thundercloud, and when it came time he stayed in the States and mustered in. That sense of derring-do came back when he became an Army paratrooper. He enjoyed jumping out of airplanes so much that he signed up for the local parachute club on Ft. Bragg, making many recreational jumps. His enthusiasm was somewhat dampened when he kept having trouble with his chute getting entangled and once landing in a tree. Paratroopers in the 82nd Airborne could party hard, especially when someone made a significant jump. One night at one of those on Post celebrations, late at night he decided he really just wanted to return home. Others were not ready to go, so he began walking. And walking. And got very bored with that. He saw a line of Army jeeps all chained up. With his judgment somewhat clouded, he turned the steering wheel and lo and behold, as he explained it to me, the chain miraculously fell off. Not wanting to ignore such a godsend, he jumped in and began driving back to his company headquarters where he could pick up his car and drive home. Now, as an officer, you are not taught to drive a jeep. Enlisted men drove the jeeps, and officers just sat in them. But Jim had been an enlisted man, learned to drive jeeps when his Advanced Individual Training (AIT) was as a Military Policeman. So away he went, but with his driving skills somewhat impaired he was quickly picked up by the fine members of the Ft. Bragg Military Police. Lo and behold, the MP arresting him was a fellow he had attended AIT with at Ft. Gordon! This would have been such a serious charge against an officer, but somehow, I don't remember how, he pretty much was able to avoid any serious repercussions. I do remember, however, losing many hours of sleep that night worrying about what had happened to him until he finally arrived home around 4 a.m.
While we were stationed at Ft. Bragg Jim purchased his first motorcycle, a fairly small dirt bike. He rode it all around the trails behind our house and sometimes up to the fort. I didn't much like riding it on the streets, but it was fun whizzing through the woods. When we moved to Houston he bought a much bigger bike, a Kawasaki 550 that he used to commute back and forth to U of H. He always said it was not the freeways that worried him, it was on the back roads where people would see you coming and wait and pull out right in front of him. The times that I rode with him, I found that to be true also. Finally, one day he and the Kawasaki came home a little the worse for wear after he tangled with a car and that was the end of the motorcycle chapter.
From there, after he began working as an architect, it was owning a sailboat. Shortly after we were married we bought a small wooden motorboat with a 35 hp motor. We didn't get to use it too much before he was drafted, but afterwards when he had leave and returned to his parents' home for visits, we all went out in the boat. The boat spent the rest of its life in the Cooper backyard, along with our two cats that we had to give up when Jim was drafted, the cats quickly morphed from 2 to 7. There are probably still descendants of those cats around Beechwoods. But the sailboat was a different kind of boat, it required skill and learning. We kept it down in a marina in Kemah, south of Houston. He and his partner, Ray--who co-owned the boat--would go out on sailboat races in Galveston Bay. Sailing was somethng we enjoyed, but it was such a far drive, we eventually gave it up.
I notice that Cindy didn't write anything about sports--she is totally uninterested in all of that! But Jim liked sports. In high school, he was on the wrestling team and was fairly successful at it. During the 1970s we were both avid Steeler fans and the Immaculate Reception was a key memory for both of us. When we first moved to Houston we attended a Steelers-Oilers game together. Jim spent most of the game trying to keep me quiet when the Steelers scored and went ahead of the home team. He probably figured we would not get out of there alive!
At U of H, we were lucky enough to be there during the glory days of the Phi Slamma Jamma Cougar basketball team, and attended many games at Hofheinz Pavilion. He was a proud alumnus.
Life with Jim could be very unpredictable, it kept things interesting. But from the time we merged our lives I knew he would be a dedicated family man. When Cindy was born was the first time he could really participate in that first year of a child's life because with Willy's first year the Army kept him from living with us, his training took almost a full year to complete. He was so happy when his grandson, James was born! And when Maitilda was born he was ready to be an even more active grandfather. Jim and she shared a very special bond from the day Cindy brought her home. He is missed. RIP
DOREEN COOPER
October 7, 2024
Thanks so much for the obituary that you created for your dad. It is the most beautiful tribute that I have ever seen. I’m sure writing the obituary was difficult but comforting as it brought back many memories of the good times that your spent with your dad. He was a modern Renaissance man that could converse at any level and with anyone on a wide range of subjects. You have captured his essence that will live forever.

Your dad was my best friend for over 70 years. We enjoyed many activities growing up. We rode bikes through the Beechwoods community. Your dad and I belonged to the Beechwoods Presbyterian Church and participated in church bible school, summer camps, Christmas and Easter programs, and the annual, well attended summer ice cream social. During Sunday school your dad always challenged the teacher. Your dad was so well read; he knew more about the bible than the teacher. Of course he had his own opinions that he strongly expressed.

We went to Beechwoods Elementary School from grades 1 through 6 and had about 28-30 kids in the class, and later attended the Brockway Area High School. Many kids were related to your dad because the “Coopers and Smiths” were early settlers of the Beechwoods community. The “Andersons” came later.

One of our favorite activities was collecting and reading comic books. Favorites were Super Man, Batman, The Hulk, Green Lantern, Spider Man, and later Iron Man. We both share the regret of having our mothers toss out our collection, which they we think would have been worth a small fortune today or at least a few hundred dollars per issue.

In the winter months there was always 2-3 feet of snow on the ground and on good snow weekends we went sledding and tobogganing on the perfect slopped hill near Beechwood’s Cemetery and near where your dad lived. We would build a fire at the bottom of the hill and frequently came really close to going through the fire when coming down the hill. The best days were when the sun melted the top of the snow and a thin crust of ice formed when it colder at night, making the toboggan go extremely fast down the hill.

These are just a few of the memories that Kathy and I have of your dad. We will greatly miss him and share the sorry of your loss.
Carl Anderson
October 6, 2024
Cindy, Willy and Maitilda,
What a beautiful tribute to your dad/grand dad. I enjoyed reading Jim’s story and learned a few new things about him. I’m so sad he is gone and am very sorry for your loss.

Jim is in many of my childhood memories. I remember pool parties at his house, OBX trips and countless dinners at my parent’s house. I usually requested he bring his famous macaroni salad and he never disappointed! I enjoyed listening to Jim’s stories and hearing his perspective on various topics. He knew so much. I loved that he and my dad were still friends after 70+ years. It was fun to watch them together and hear stories of their younger days. Jim was more than a friend to my dad, he was family to him & all of the Anderson’s. I can still see him walking around the back of our house with a 6 pack of Rolling Rock in his hands. Jim will be greatly missed but he will not be forgotten. He will live on through our memories of him and the things he taught us. Sending you all love and hugs. 💗
Mary Kopa (Anderson)
October 6, 2024
I’m so very sorry for your loss, Cindy.
Geoff

Family tree

Alton B. Cooper
Grace Vera Calhoun
Charles Ernest Smith
Ruth Williams
Elmer William Cooper
Lena Ruth Smith
Doreen Francis Cooper
Joan Cooper Rusek
William (Bill) Cooper
William Charles Cooper
James Richard Cooper
Cynthia Jean Cooper
Maitilda Joan Cooper
Joan Cooper Rusek
William (Bill) Cooper
Doreen Francis Cooper
William Charles Cooper
James Richard Cooper
Cynthia Jean Cooper
Maitilda Joan Cooper
James Cooper
Share

Secure payment

First Lastname donation
Order total: $ 0
Your host will receive your funds within 24 hours.