A few years ago, I asked everyone in the family to send me stories about Grandma and Grandpa Cooper. I had forgotten that I had this from Aunt Ophelia Cooper until I was going through my blog posts. I had written it as a draft and never posted it. I thought Jim's family would enjoy reading it.
As told by Than's daughter in law, Ophelia Cooper:
"One time when Grandma Cooper was in the hospital, I was over doing the laundry for Grandma Cooper and cleaning her house, because she was coming home from the hospital that day. I washed Grandpa Cooper's bib overalls, like 12 pair, and emptied all the pockets out. He came home and said, "Fella, where are my bibs? Have you seen them?" She said, "Yes they are all out on the clothesline. If you give me a minute, I'll run out and get you a pair and iron them for you." He said, "Good God! I've never worn a pair of washed bibs in my life!" He grabbed his keys and went off swearing and cussing all the way to Uncle Jed's store to buy him some new bibs. He told Uncle Jed, "Good God, you never want to leave anything laying around with Fella there. She washes everything." He also told Jim that he was mad as heck at her.
Grandpa Cooper stood out on their front porch eating one of Ma's dried biscuits, watching Pam, DyAnn, Kathleen and Ophelia playing softball at the grade school. He said he could tell we were having a fun time.
Grandma Cooper idolized Grandpa. It didn't matter what he did, you could always tell she loved him.
We had Grandma and Grandpa down for Thanksgiving dinner one year. Dad took Grandpa down to the CBA horse barn to look at the horses. He really enjoyed that. Then Dad took him hunting. They had a real good time that day. Grandpa Cooper got really tired and said, "I don't want to go hunting anymore. The Thanksgiving Dinner was good." He also said my rolls were like a loaf of bread and he really loved them.
We went to the sheep herd a lot to see Grandpa when we were little. We kids would sleep in the sheep camp. Kathleen was just a tiny girl, and she cried and cried. Grandpa Cooper yelled out the sheep camp, "Fella come and get this G.D. kid so I can get some sleep!"
One time Grandma Cooper was staying with Grandpa Cooper at the sheep camp and fell out of it and hurt her leg real bad. She had a lot of problems with her leg after that.
Mom used to spend a lot of time with Grandma and Grandpa Cooper. She really enjoyed that time. She had a lot of love for each of them.
When Mom got pregnant with Jeanie, Dad wasn't very happy about it. Grandpa Cooper took a hold of Dad and shook the heck out of him and told him to straighten up and be happy. This is the best thing that could happen to you. Dad went home and said to Mom, "What the heck did you say to Dad?" She said, "I told him you weren't very happy with me being pregnant." Dad said, "Well he sure cussed me." Grandpa Cooper also said that when Grandma Cooper had Aunt Fae he was really happy.
