Memories of My Grandma Cooper

This is my Grandma Cooper.  I have so many  wonderful memories of her and staying at her house in Panguitch, Utah.  Whenever we would go to Grammy's house to visit, we would be greeted by the scents of homemade bread and chicken and noodles, or homemade soup.  She always made us something good to eat for our arrival.  The kitchen was also a place where I played the card game, “Spoons” with Gram.  She would laugh, and laugh when I stole the spoon and took her pile of cards.  She seemed almost pleased that I had stolen her pile.  She was always such a happy, loving, good person.  I had a lot of fun with her.  She always made me feel like I was the smartest and most talented girl in the world.


My Grandma Cooper was the sweetest lady.  She always seemed happy.  I hardly ever heard her say a bad thing about another person.  She had a hard life and yet she was very optimistic and happy.  She never had much and yet what she had, she was proud of.  She loved beauty and yet she was not prideful or vain.  She liked to have nice things and yet she didn't complain about what she didn't have.   When Grandma talked about something being expensive she said it was “too dear.”  If she thought something was wonderful, she said it was "grand.”  Sometimes when we were going some place in the car, she would look at all the other cars on the highway and would ask, “Do you think all these folks are going to the concert (or wherever we were going) too?”  She couldn't imagine so many people going so many places and doing so many things.  She never learned to drive a car.  During her life she experienced the horse drawn carriage to spacecraft carrying men into space.  She died just before the Space Shuttles began their voyages into space.


She always wore a homemade bib-type apron of small print flowers trimmed with ric-rack over her dress.  Gram sewed her aprons for most of her life as she had been a good seamstress.  She often did sewing to earn extra money to provide for her family.  Mom said that she often made special outfits for her to wear to race meets and dances.  Grandma also wore solid and sensible black shoes with a heel.  In 1955, she broke her leg when she was at the sheep herd camp with my grandpa and it was stiff the rest of her life.  I don't think I ever heard her complain about her stiff leg.  


She loved music and was always humming a song.  She loved to sing.  I remember when we went to visit, my mom would often play the piano and Gram would sing.  She loved the pioneer songs and often sang songs from a green pioneer songbook.  I have many good memories of  warm summer afternoons, listening to my mother play that old upright piano and listening to my sweet grandma singing her heart out.

My grandma belonged to the DUP - The Daughters of Utah Pioneers.  I remember that when we were there she would often say, “I have DUP today,” which meant that she had a DUP meeting.  Most of her friends were also members of DUP and so she really enjoyed it.  One of the things she looked forward to was the 24th of July.  Panguitch had a yearly celebration including a parade, chuckwagon lunch, and rodeo.  The parade was a highlight for everyone.  I can still recall her getting ready for the parade.  She would put on a fancy pioneer dress. Every year the DUP had a float and all the ladies rode on it making up a bazooka band.  My grandma played the drum.  I can just see her now beating out the rhythm all the while humming away on her bazooka with all the other ladies.  Those are good memories, and no 24th of July is quite the same now compared to that simple small town parade.  The DUP bazooka band is a tradition that continues on.  In 2009 and again in 2011, I saw the Panguitch 24th of July parade and the ladies did their best to represent the DUP in the way that has been done for as long as I can remember.  I think that is fitting, my grandma would like it that way.


I always loved to go to Panguitch for the 24th of July because a lot of our family from out of town would also be there.  It was always a good time laughing and enjoying being with each other.  My grandma was the happiest of all to have us all there.  It was always hard to leave her and go home.  I knew that she would be so lonely and my mom always cried when we left.

1976 -Pioneer Day (24th of July) at my grandma's house with members of the Cooper Family

My Maternal Grandmother - Isabell Church Cooper

This personal history was written by Bell: 

Isabell Church Cooper was born July 28, 1893 at Three Mile Creek located three miles north of Panguitch, Utah. She was born in a little Danish house down by the river. She was the daughter of Robert Robbins and Charlotte Emily Talbot Church. The day she was born, the roof blew off the little house. She was the sixth of thirteen children. Her brothers and sisters were: Mary Emily, Robert Robbins, George Newman, Charlotte, Sarah Ann, Rhoda, Abraham Arterbury, John Dunning, Verda, William Wallace, Haden Wells, and Lydia. They were a very kind and loving family, and Bell loved them all very dearly. Bell's mother was a hard working woman. She was an immaculate housekeeper and an excellent cook. It was said that the threshers always tried to make an overnight stay at their house as she fed them so well. Bell said of her father, "Father was the best-natured man I ever saw. I don't suppose he ever had a fault. We always thought he was just perfect. He was so gentle and kind to everyone he met." Bell and the other Church children grew up in the Deward Woodard place in Spry. They went over to Tropic and got a load of trees. They planted the trees around the lot, and they are still growing there. Bell's father would put in the crops in the spring, and then would go away to shear sheep. Her mother would irrigate the crops, milk cows, and make butter and cheese while Mr. Church was gone. Mr. Church would come home and farm the rest of the summer. They always raised their winter's wheat, meat, butter, cheese, potatoes, vegetables, etc. so they didn't have to spend much money for other things they needed.

They lived at "the dear old farm," as Bell referred to it, until most of the children were born. Mr. Church then traded it to Mr. Joseph Beckstrom for a ranch in Little Valley and a home in Panguitch at 189 West 200 South that Bell and Than later lived in. Every year they would go to Dixie for a load of fruit. Her mother would trade butter, cheese and homemade soap for the fruit. Primary was held in their home. Mrs. Church was the Primary President. The neighbor children would come from all around. As the family grew up, they went to Panguitch for school and church. When Bell was six years old, she sang in "The Old Hall." She sang, "If I had Been Made a Rooster." She still remembered and could sing the song in 1973 at the age of 80.

Bell's first school was Mrs. Neilson in 1900, in The Old Elementary School. (The school was torn down in 1972.) Bell would ride a horse to school and leave it to feed at Bill Talbot's place until school was out. Later they rented a home in Panguitch, and would move there in winters. Mrs. Church would spend about a week white-washing and scrubbing the houses they lived in. Bell could always remember how they would put down a rag carpet with straw under it and it would crackle under their feet. She also remembered when they would fill the old factory straw ticks for the bed. What a grand and glorious feeling to be moved to town in such splendor. When Bell was twelve years old, she was set apart as a choir member. She was blessed with a very beautiful voice. She was able to sing both alto and soprano. She knew so very many songs, and always taught them to her own children. Bell was also very good at poetry, and most of her children can still remember several of the poems and songs she taught them in younger years.

Bell attended the first High School. It was called The Dell Webb High School. Mr. Webb was the only instructor, and there were about thirteen class members. This was in 1910. When Bell graduated from the 8th grade, she was chosen to teach school in Hatch Town, Utah. While teaching in Hatch Town, she made many life-long friends, both young and old. She always cherished these friends very dearly.

Isabell Church - far left

On July 4, 1913, Bell married Than Cooper. Their first child named Thad, was stillborn some nine months later. They were very sad to lose their first little child. Eleven months later, their daughter Grace was born. Bell's father passed away when Grace was six weeks old. That was a very sad day for Bell, because he was so very dear to her. Than and Bell were blessed with eight children: Thad, Grace, Gwen, Jim, Jean, Grant, Mae and Fae Ann. They were all very dear children and musically talented. Both Than and Bell were very proud of them. Bell loved to make the girls lovely dresses and fix them up. She loved to have them take part in church and society. Bell did a lot of sewing for different people in Panguitch to help supplement their meager income. One winter she took thirteen old woolen coats apart, and re-made them into lovely, warm coats. Bell's children, and many of her little granddaughters, were always some of the best dressed in town, due to her beautiful sewing. There could never be too many ruffles and lace on her lovely hand-made items of wear.

Than and Bell were away from each other a great deal of their married life. Than was a sheep herder and spent most of his time at the sheep herd. Bell would take the children, and spend most all of her summers at the herd with Than. She always enjoyed being with him. He was a good, hard-working man, and a good husband and father. There are very few women who loved their husband any more than Bell did hers. She thought he was so handsome and she loved him dearly.

Life was not always easy for Bell. They had very few luxuries when she was raising her family: No running water in the house, no hot water heater, and very little money to make life easier for them. But, Bell never complained. She was always singing and humming, no matter how hard life was for her.

Bell took an active part in life. She sang in about every funeral and program that was ever held in Panguitch. She sang for many years with her dear sister Lydia Lassen, until Lydia moved away, then Bell sang with about everyone that ever sang. That seemed to have been her life's calling. She served as a counselor in the Stake Primary Presidency and counselor in the South Ward Primary Presidency. She served as Stake MIA, Stake Primary Chorister and Relief Society Chorister. She served as Daughters of Utah Pioneers Counselor two different times, and was Regional President of the DUP for one year. Bell always did an outstanding job at all of her callings.

Bell rode horses until she was 62 years old when she had the misfortune of breaking her leg. She was helping Than move the sheep camp and had just climbed off her horse onto a stump. The stump gave way and she fell and broke her leg. She had to have surgery on it, and there was water and blood on the knee, so her knee was stiff from that day on. This was a tragedy in her life, and she had to give up many of the activities she was used to doing. When she was in the hospital, several of the men and ladies she had taught in Hatch came to see her. They told her she was the best teacher they ever had in school. This made her feel very good. She loved teaching school, and made so many wonderful friends in Hatch. She was so distraught at her injury, that she almost gave up many times.

She was given a Patriarchal Blessing and was told that she should keep on making people happy with the beautiful voice she had been blessed with. This seemed to help her a lot, and she did again start singing and taking part. She sang with the choir, and then a group of ladies, under the leadership of Mrs. Porter, sang together. They formed a "Rhythm Band." At first they just did it for rhythm, but it grew and sounded so good that they added a new instrument occasionally, and they became quite famous. Bell played the bazooka and drum, which she was very good at. They played for many programs and "little dances." It was said that they helped make money for the Primary Associations of both the North and South Wards. At one time they helped raise well over $1,000.00 which, I am sure was much money at that time. This band tradition continues today and is now known as the DUP bazooka band. They can been seen and heard performing on the DUP float during the Panguitch 24th of July celebration parade.

DUP Bazooka Band - Pioneer Day Parade

Bell took her two youngest daughters to California to live in about 1940. Fae Ann had a bad hip problem, and the family thought that the warmer weather climate would help her. Jim and Grant worked at the ship yards there, and Grace and her husband George Young lived there at the time. Grant was drafted into the army (World War II) soon after, so they went back to Panguitch in November, 1940. Grant was sent to Germany, where he was in General Patton's Third Army, in the thick of the battle. This was a terrible worry to Bell. He wrote her every time he could so she wouldn't worry so much. She promised the Lord that if he would bring Grant safely home, she would never touch tea or coffee again, which she never did to her dying day. He did come home safe, and she was ever so thankful to God.

Bell and Than celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary at a family gathering in Salt Lake City in 1963. Than passed away in August of 1970. Bell was very saddened at his passing. She went to the St. George Temple the following year, and was sealed for time and eternity to Than. This was very fulfilling for her. She always loved Than so.

Grant, Gwen Grace, Bell, Than, Jean, Mae and Faye at Golden Wedding Anniversary

Words cannot adequately express the very wonderful person that Bell was. She was an inspiration to all who ever knew her, especially her children. There could never have been a more wonderful, compassionate, caring, and loving mother and wife as Bell. Her grandchildren always loved her very much, and love to talk about her and what a loving grandmother she was. What an example to all of her family she was.

Bell almost 85 years old

Bell went through a very hard time in the last year of her life. She was confined to the Panguitch Hospital which made her very sad. She had to have two of her toes amputated, then her leg became infected with gangrene, and they were contemplating the amputation of that. She was taken to Salt Lake City to the Holy Cross Hospital on March 19, 1979. On March 22nd, she passed away - a night before the amputation was to take place.

Bell lived a long life of 85 years, and loved it very much. May her memory live on forever in the hearts of her dear family, and many friends. I feel sure that God would say to her, "Well done, my good and faithful servant."

How This Began

My mother died in December of 2009. After she died I realized that a lot of information had been lost with her death. I found that there were lots of things I would like to ask her about the family, but now couldn't. In my childhood I spent a lot of time in Southern Utah at my grandparent's house. When we were visitng my Grandma Cooper, we often went on drives around the area and to the cemetery because my grandpa was the Sexton there. Grandma always pointed out the graves and told stories about the person buried there. She loved to talk about her youth and growing up in Panguitch, Utah. She told stories of being afraid of the Indians, of floods, and of the heartache of losing family members to death. She was a member of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers and had recorded and kept histories of family members. She had written a good biography of her life, but nothing had been written about my grandpa. It was at this time that I decided to start asking questions about family that we had no history on. I knew that if I didn't try to get the facts and details from those family members still alive, the stories would maybe be lost forever.

 Over the last two years I have done a lot of research into my family's genealogy and family history. I have learned many amazing facts and read inspiring stories of where they came from and how and why they came to Utah.  Names on a page are no longer names; they are people. I appreciate the sacrifices they made so that I can live where I do today.  I wish I had kept a journal all this time so that I would have a written record of my discoveries. I have forgotten many of them. I have four three-ring binders with pages I have printed but I wanted to personalize my ancestor's stories in a better way.  That is why I decided to start this blog, to make an account of my family's history. 

It is my hope that my family and extended family will find this blog a source of information and inspiration. I hope that they can gain an appreciation for our ancestors as I have.  I also hope that they will add their comments or memories.