Another Goodbye

A couple years after the marriage of the late Catherine Flannigan Cook’s daughter, the Cook household is now comprised of only the mutual children of August Cook and his second wife, the former Anna Bolan.

By the time of the 1910 census, John Jay, now twenty-one, is actually a college student at the University of Michigan. His younger brother, now called by his middle name, Clarence, is still in high school.

Along with the family in the household is someone named Agnes Bolan. Though the name matches the maiden name of the boys’ mother, Agnes is listed in the census merely as “friend.” However, born in Michigan yet with a father born in New York and a mother from Canada, the trail left by this “friend’s” Bolan family seems quite similar to Anna Bolan Cook’s trail from her own birthplace. If I didn’t know any better—and I confess, I do suspect this census taker’s accuracy here—I’d say Agnes was perhaps visiting in the household of her own aunt. And yet, which brother would be her father? It would have to be a brother a bit older than Anna and her sister Mary, for the man was born in New York. The Bolan family was in Canada for at least nine years before the 1861 census there.

And, indeed, the 1930 census does bear that guess out, as Agnes is actually credited as the widow Anna Cook’s own niece. She still remains at the Cook household—a place where, I suspect, she remains for the duration of Anna’s life, and a town she calls home for the rest of her own days.

As for the head of that household, August Charles Cook himself, he was not to remain at that Iron Mountain residence for long after the 1910 census. A passing mention in a neighboring county’s newspaper noted:

Many people in Gogebic County learned with much regret of the death last week at Iron Mountain of August C. Cook, a pioneer resident of the Menominee range and one of the Upper Peninsula’s leading lawyers. Mr. Cook was 58 years old and had been ill for a long time.

I was somewhat surprised to not be able to find more on the Honorable Mr. Cook’s passing. Admittedly, digitized coverage of newspapers from that era in that region is sparse. However, considering his professional and political role in the Dickinson County and Upper Peninsula areas, despite the out-of-sight aspect of any lingering illness, I was presuming there would be more to say upon his passing.

The report was found in the Ironwood News Record on October 9, 1915. August Charles Cook died on September 27, 1915, leaving two sons in their twenties as well as his widow, Anna.

Photograph: Dickinson County, Michigan, Courthouse, circa 1911; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.