Orrell Wilkinson Cooper

Orrell Wilkinson Cooper passed away Aug. 3, 2011. She was born on Aug. 17, 1915 in Des Moines, Iowa. Her parents were Bertha Larrison and John Wilkinson of Mitchellville, Iowa. She was raised on farms owned by her family in both Mitchellville and Winterset, Iowa. Orrell was a graduate of Dakota Wesleyan University, Mitchell, S.D. and Long Beach State University, with a degree in education.

Orrell met and married Donald Paul Cooper, her husband of 58 years, in 1938. That same year, Orrell started a 42-year teaching career in a one-room rural schoolhouse in Mt. Vernon, S.D. From 1938 to 1952 the...