This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/kg.2ADI/1520 Message Board Post: Isaiah Cooper Junior Obituary 1817-1895 [From the Baxter Springs, Kansas, newspaper] Died, at the home of his son, J. M. Cooper, in this city on Friday, February 8, 1895, at 7 o'clock p.m., Isaiah Cooper, aged seventy-seven years, seven months, and twenty-one days. Mr. Cooper had been ill ten weeks during which time he suffered intensely, but as the end drew near, his sufferings ceased and he passed away calmly. Deceased was born in Indiana on June 18, 1817. When ten years old, he moved with his parents to Pike county, Illinois, where he lived for forty years. In 1849, however, he went across the plains to California with an ox team. [It was 1846]. After remaining in California two years and nine months, he returned to Illinois, where he lived until 1867, when he moved to Cherokee county, Kansas and resided in this city and on his farm near here ever since. [This leaves out his two years in Oregon.] He was married to Elizabeth Sigsworth in Pike county, Illinois, in 1840. His wife died eleven years ago. Mr. Cooper enlisted in the rebellion on May 10, 1862, and was made captain of Company K, 99th Illinois Infantry. He suffered the loss of his right arm at Black creek [Big Black River] in the rear of Vicksburg during the battle of the latter place and was discharged for wounds on March 20, 1864. He was a charter member of Baxter Lodge No. 71, A. F. and A. M. [Masons] and remained in good standing up to the time of his death. He joined Baxter Post No. 123 G. A. R. on March 4, 1887. [The Grand Army of the Republic, G. A. R., was an organization of former Union soldiers that ceased to exist in 1959 with the death of the last Union soldier.] During all the years of his life Mr. Cooper was a conscientious follower of the golden rule, doing nothing except what he knew to be right, and his friends were legion. Mr. Cooper was the father of ten children, all of whom are living, six of them being present at the time of his death. Funeral services were held on Sunday, February 10, at l o'clock and were conducted by Baxter Post No. 123, G. A. R. After a short ceremony at the residence on East River street, the remains were taken to the First Methodist Episcopal church, where a beautiful and touching sermon was delivered by Rev. M. E. Bramhall, pastor of the First Methodist Episcopal church of McCune. The large edifice was crowded to standing room. After Rev. Bramhall had concluded his remarks, Baxter Post No. 123, G. A. R., paid its respect to the deceased according to the ritual of the order and was followed by Baxter Lodge, No. 71, A. F. and A. M., which also performed the ritualistic ceremony of the order. The procession was then formed and notwithstanding the extremely cold weather a large concourse of sorrowing friends and relatives followed the remains to their last resting place in the city cemetery. Arriving at the cemetery, the Masons concluded the services. The bereaved members of the family have the sympathy of all. Typed from a photocopy of Isaiah's original obituary on March 4, 2004 by Don Rivara