# The Cooper Family ## Origins in America The Cooper family traces its American roots to the early English colonial period. By the mid-1800s, the family had migrated into northern Pennsylvania and southern New York, settling near the frontier town of Ceres. Oscar F. Thaddeus Cooper was born there on April 15, 1847. He married Rosalthea “Rose” Angelia Lanphere in 1867, and together they raised eight children. Oscar was part of the westward migration that swept across the United States after the Civil War. He moved his family first to Brown County, South Dakota, before eventually settling in Hecla, and finally in Cayuga, North Dakota around 1910. He died in Cayuga in 1911, having witnessed the rapid transformation of the American frontier over his lifetime. ## Life on the American Frontier Oscar’s son [[Cooper, Charles (1879–1948)|Charles Calvin Cooper]] was born August 19, 1879, in Shingle House, Pennsylvania, and grew up during his family’s moves across the Midwest. Charles married Bertha Clausen in Hecla, South Dakota, in 1900. They had one son, Edwin, before divorcing. Charles later married [[Genealogy Publish/Petrie/Biographies/Bartosh, Anna (1888-1964)|Anna Elizabeth Bartosh]] on November 25, 1913, with whom he had five children. Charles was a man of hard labor and rural resourcefulness. He moved from North Dakota to Minnesota in the late 1920s and eventually settled in Bemidji, where he spent the rest of his life. According to family memory, Charles adopted Anna’s son William from her previous marriage, and William took the Cooper name. Charles’s daughter Gladys recalled encountering her half-brother Edwin years later, having grown up largely unaware of him. ## Family Life and Legacy Charles and Anna raised their family during the Great Depression and taught their children the value of hard work and resilience. Charles was remembered as having a stern presence, but also a dry sense of humor. One family story recalls Anna’s quick wit—when a neighbor commented that an infant was so young his eyes hadn’t opened yet, she responded, “He’s sleeping, silly.” Charles’s daughter Gladys Cooper was born in North Dakota. She met her future husband, Robert Petrie, at a dance in Minnesota. They married in 1932, and Gladys became the camp cook at the logging site where Robert worked. After moving to Spokane in 1937, Gladys retrained as an operating room nurse and lived a long life filled with family, work, and travel. She passed away in 2002. ## Key Individuals * [[Cooper, Oscar (1847–1911)]] – patriarch, frontier farmer * [[Lanphere, Rosalthea (1847-1937)]] – wife of Oscar, mother of eight * [[Cooper, Charles (1879–1948)]]– son of Oscar, farmer and Bemidji settler * [[Genealogy Publish/Petrie/Biographies/Bartosh, Anna (1888-1964)]] – Charles’s second wife, mother of five * [[Cooper, Gladys (1909–2002)]] – nurse, camp cook, Spokane matriarch ## Family Tree and Photos * Cooper family tree * Portraits of Charles and Anna Cooper * Photos from Bemidji and logging camp life