Carolyn Cooper

Carolyn Cooper died on Mercer Island, WA, on October 19, 2014, with her daughter by her side.  She was born on March 16, 1916, to Fredrick and Elma Dosch in Richland Center, Wisconsin. She was the youngest of twelve children, the wife of Ralph M. Cooper for more than 60 years, the mother of one daughter, Linda Jane Kozarek, the grandmother of two granddaughters, Katie and Ellie, and great grandmother to Lyla Follmar. She was very proud of her son-in-law, Dr. Richard A. Kozarek, who she treated as the son she never had.

Carolyn graduated from Richland Center High School in 1932 and Richland County Normal in 1933. In 1937 she graduated from the University of Wisconsin with honors and was a member of Pi Lambda Theta honorary education society. She taught at Oconomowoc High School in Wisconsin for four years in the same building where her daughter would teach thirty years later. In 1940, Carolyn married Ralph M. Cooper, her brother’s best friend, and moved to West Virginia during the war years, where Carolyn and her husband were both teachers. In 1944 they returned to Wisconsin—first to Westby, where their daughter was born in 1949, and then to Madison in 1955.

Mrs. Cooper was a math teacher for most of her career, having taught algebra and geometry in many of the Madison area schools from 1955 to 1967. Later in her career, she worked for the Wisconsin Department of Revenue until her retirement in 1981. She was a member of the University of Wisconsin Alumni Association the Madison Civics Club, Daughters of Demeter, and Bethany Methodist Church in Madison, where she loyally maintained her membership even after moving to Mercer Island, Washington, in 2002.

Carolyn and her husband Ralph were a perfectly matched team and enjoyed doing everything together: Carolyn washed the dishes, Ralph dried the dishes; they went dancing on Friday nights; they played bridge regularly with friends, they went to church every Sunday where they sat in the same pew for forty-five years. At the same time, Carolyn managed her finances independently and invested wisely over the years. She maintained a regular daily schedule, walked a mile twice a day, loved to look for and find four leaf clovers, and baked apple pies with apples from the tree in the backyard. Always loyal, she maintained friendships throughout her life with her high school and college friends. Having grown up during the depression, she was careful with money, always planned ahead, valued hard work, and was always on time. She was very close to her six sisters and five brothers all of whom predeceased her: Beulah (Elliott), Bertha (Bradbury), Nellie (Knudsen), Ruth (Evans), Esther (Perkins), Louise (Boode) and Paul, Pete, Perry, Howard and Fred Dosch. Her husband, Ralph, died in 2001 which precipitated her move to the west coast to be with her daughter.

She is survived by her daughter, Linda Jane Kozarek and son-in-law Dick Kozarek of Mercer Island, Washington; her granddaughter, Katie, an architect in Seattle; her granddaughter, Ellie Follmar(Troy), a dentist who lives in Los Gatos, California, and her first great-grandchild, Lyla Marie Follmar born September 3, 2013.

Donations in her name may be made to the University of Wisconsin School of Education (scholarship fund) or Bethany Methodist Church, 3910 Mineral Point Way, Madison, Wisconsin 53705.

Many thanks to the kind caregivers of Sunrise Assisted Living on Mercer Island who took care of her for the last eight years.