Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1888-07-14
ars. Edmonie e. Cooke.

Your correspondent has just learned of
the death of his venerable and highly es-
teemed friend, Mrs. E. e. Cooke, who de-
parted this life on the 2Sth of June, 1883, in
the seth year of her age Mrs Cooke had
been twice married. Mr.. Edmund Berkeley,
by whom she had one child, Mrs. Mary e.
Noland, now living at Airwell, Hanover
county, Va, being her first husband, and
the Rev. John Cooke, for a long time rector
of the Old Fork (Episcopa) Church, and
the founder of Trinity Church, by whom
she had FIVE children, being her second hus.
band.
1t fell to the lot OF the writer, when
mere boy, yet in his teens, to be thrown into
ship with the family of the Rev. John Cooke.
Just at that age which excites the deepest
thoughtful, prudent and conscientious pa.
rents In addition to this responsibility
there were seventy CT eighty negro slaves
upon the home form, for whose provision in
health and careful attention in sickness the
deepest sense of obligation pressed upon the
mind and heart of their mistress. It was
while burdened with these oppressive ply
eical and mental cares that the writer
became intimately acquainted with
Mrs. Cooke. And during the long pc.
Rod of confidential intercourse which
followed this eventful epoch the wri-
ter saw Mrs. c.. in several attacks OF
extreme and painful illness in her own per-
son-he saw her, as through anxious days
and weary nights che watched beside her
suffering husband and perilously ill children
and grandchildren; be saw hev. as through
anxious weeks she bore to the bedside of
fever stricken slaves food and medicines
which were often prepared and administered
by her own delicate hand he saw her as
often times she visited the poor and afflicted
in their humble cots, dispensing food, raj
ment and medicine, without money and
without price" In all these relations as
wife, mother, mistress and neighbor, she
made no discrimination, but administered TO
the necessities Of the suffering slave, on
poverty stricken neighbor, with the same
tender care and generous benefactions she
did to the husband or child.
Digni6ed and easy in manners, fluent
and fascinating in conversation, tender and
sympathetic in disposition, kind and gener
GUS in benefactions, she commanded the
confidence, excited the admiration, and
won the love of all who knew her. De-
voutly pious, she not only bore to the bed
side of the suffering, whether white or
black, bond or free, the supplies requisite
for the comfort of the body, but she bore, as
we'll, the comforts of religion and the conso
lations of the gospel to stricken hearts and
sorrowing spirits, An angel of mercy, che
lightened up the home gloomed by sorrow,
and crushed by the cold hand of death, with
the sunlight of heaven. What che admins.
tered to others she appropriated to herself
in the closing hours of her earthly pilgrim.
age, and entered "the valley of the shadow
of death, fearing no evil"
But her race is run and her work is done,
and to-day, from Alexandria to Danville,
from Charleston, w. Va, to Norfolk, from
New York and Alabama, loving hearts are
mingling their grief in the bitter cup of
sorrow, and are looking in vain for the light
of that beautiful star, which so long adorned
the moral horizon of the Forks of
Norfolk, Va., July IL. HANOVER.