Lewis Cooper 1899–1985

Catalog ID p.177 · Cite this page: njcoopers.com/p/177/

Lewis Cooper was born in 1899, the son of Samuel Jones Cooper and Lulu (Beers) Cooper. He probably married Nellie H. Cruver (1924). He died in 1985 in Forks Township, Northampton Co., Pa. and was buried at Northampton Memorial Shrine, Palmer Township, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, USA, Plot Section N. Five children are recorded.

Facts

Event	Date	Place / detail	Certainty	Sources
birth	1899		certain	G.161, D.290, D.379, D.379
residence	1900	Oxford Twp, Warren Co., NJ	certain	D.665
residence	1910	Upper Mount Bethel Twp, Northampton Co., PA	certain	D.666
residence	1918	Portland [Upper Mount Bethel Twp], Northampton Co., PA	certain	B.113
residence	16 Nov 1924	Portland [Upper Mount Bethel Twp], Northampton Co., PA	certain	J.561
residence	4 Apr 1930	Stroud Township, Monroe Co., Pennsylvania	certain	D.379
occupation	4 Apr 1930	Carpenter, Building Contractor	certain	D.379
death	1985	Forks Township, Northampton Co., Pa.	certain	G.161, J.396
burial		Northampton Memorial Shrine, Palmer Township, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, USA, Plot Section N	certain	G.161

Family

Parents

Father Samuel Jones Cooper 1869–1951
Mother Lulu (Beers) Cooper 1869–1958

Spouses

Nellie H. (Cruver) Cooper 1903–1994 probable
married Nov 1924, Portland, Upper Mount Bethel Twp, Northampton Co., Pennsylvania
J.561, J.396

Siblings

Children

Carl Lewis Cooper 1928–2017
Shirley Cooper 1937–2015
Joan H. (Cooper) Focht 1941–2020
LeRoy S Cooper 1943–2018
Lois A. (Cooper) Supers 1936–2017

Family tree

Solid lines and outlines: certain. Dashed: probable or weaker. Open the full tree (four generations)

In the documents

Every published document that names Lewis Cooper, in date order, with what that document itself records.

Date	Document	Role	What it records
1 Jun 1900	D.665 census population 1900 1900 U.S. census, Oxford Township, Warren Co., New Jersey, ED 195, sheet 1A, lines 36-45 (dwellings 9 and 10) — NARA T623	child as "Lewis"	residence: 1900, Oxford Twp, Warren Co., NJ
20 Apr 1910	D.666 census population 1910 1910 U.S. census, Upper Mount Bethel Township (part of), Northampton Co., Pennsylvania, ED 124, sheet 4B, lines 70-75 (dwelling 90, family 90) — NARA T624	child as "Lewis, 11"	residence: 1910, Upper Mount Bethel Twp, Northampton Co., PA
12 Sep 1918	B.113 draft registration World War I draft registration card, Lewis Cooper, Local Board for Division No. 1, Northampton Co., Pennsylvania (Bangor), serial 2623, order 2584, registered 1…	registrant as "Lewis Cooper"	birth: 13 Mar 1899 residence: 1918, Portland [Upper Mount Bethel Twp, Slateford District], Northampton Co., PA occupation: 1918, Farming, employer Samuel J. Cooper
5 Jan 1920	D.290 census population 1920 1920 U.S. census, Upper Mt. Bethel Township, Northampton Co., Pennsylvania, ED 161, sheet 2B, lines 57-62 (dwelling 36, family 37) and 94-97 (dwelling 47, famil…	child as "Lewis, 20, reamer, shipyard"
16 Nov 1924	J.561 newspaper marriage licence notice The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.), Sunday 16 November 1924, page 10 — the "MARRIAGE LICENSES" column, nine entries.	groom as "Lewis Cooper"	residence: 16 Nov 1924, Portland, Upper Mount Bethel Twp, Northampton Co., Pennsylvania
4 Apr 1930	D.379 federal census 1930 US Federal Census, Population Schedule - Stroud Township, Monroe County, Pennsylvania; S.D. 11, E.D. 45-19, sheet 4A; enumerated 4 April 1930 by Mrs. Olive…	head as "Cooper, Lewis"	residence: 4 Apr 1930, Stroud Township, Monroe Co., Pennsylvania occupation: 4 Apr 1930, Carpenter, Building Contractor
19 Apr 1940	D.380 federal census 1940 US Federal Census — Palmer Township, Northampton Co., Pennsylvania, ED 48-111, sheet 7A, lines 4–5 (household 128): a two-person Lewis and Nellie Cooper ho…	head as "Cooper, Lewis"	residence: 1 Apr 1940, Palmer Twp, Northampton Co., Pennsylvania occupation: 1 Apr 1940, Laborer, factory
1950-04	D.382 federal census 1950 US Census, Forks Twp, Northampton Co. PA (ED 48-72, sheet 2) — Lewis Cooper household (dwelling 15): Lewis 51 b. NEW JERSEY (foreman, vending machine manuf…	head as "Cooper, Lewis"

13 further documents not published (they may name living people).

Still unknown, and where we have looked

Birthplace not established.

Searches recorded

ancestry all 2026-10-19 · HIS 1940 CENSUS - the gap on this file at 'no search recorded'. 1940 US Federal Census (Ancestry coll. 2442), SIGNED IN, complete-county...

Searched for: HIS 1940 CENSUS - the gap on this file at 'no search recorded'. 1940 US Federal Census (Ancestry coll. 2442), SIGNED IN, complete-county recipe with the residence_x token present and the COUNT CHECKED BEFORE THE ROWS: (a) ?name=_Cooper&count=50&residence=_northampton-pennsylvania-usa_2191&residence_x=1-0-0_1-0&birth=1899&birth_x=1-0-0 - his FATHER's cohort in the county the family lived in - 3 rows, ALL READ. (b) the same recipe on birth=1928, his own year - 3 rows, ALL READ. (c) the same recipe on MONROE CO. (place id 2065), where he was born [G.162] - zero rows. Birthplace deliberately left UNFILTERED in every one of them, per the [D.860] lesson: the birthplace column records what the enumerator wrote. That choice is what made (a) work - the plate it found gives his father's birthplace as Pennsylvania when three other censuses give New Jersey.

Result: HE IS NOT IN THE 1940 INDEX IN EITHER COUNTY - AND THE SEARCH RE-DISCOVERED AN ENTRY THE CATALOG HAS HELD SINCE JUNE. (b) The three Northampton Coopers of his cohort are Donald C (son of Minnie W, Bethlehem) and Mary and Johnna (daughters of John and Anna, Easton). None is him. (c) Monroe Co. holds none at all. (a) found a two-person Lewis + Nellie Cooper household at Palmer Twp = [D.380], written 2026-06-10, which this search did not know existed. The duplicate was caught by RULE ZERO-C: filing the downloaded image into Docs/ put it beside a byte-identical twin from June (2,077,289 bytes both). Had the entry been written before the image was filed, the catalog would now hold two entries for one plate. The duplicate file was deleted. AND THE BLIND RE-RUN CONFIRMS THE JUNE RESULT, which is the useful part: two independent sweeps four months apart reach the same dead end. [D.380]'s identification stays OPEN - no children on the sheet, birthplace Pennsylvania against New Jersey three times, and a renter-labourer against 1930's home-owning contractor - and the leading reading remains that this family was never enumerated in 1940. The full argument and the 2026-06-10 relative-household sweep are on Lewis Cooper. One correction fell out of the re-reading: [D.380] had Nellie aged 36 since June; the cell reads 35 on a census_stitch.py stitch at 4x. Corrected in the entry. The only untried route is an ED-level image browse of the Stroud Twp / East Stroudsburg / Forks Twp callback sheets (61-A onward).

ancestry all 2026-10-19 · HIS MARRIAGE TO Nellie H. (Cruver) Cooper NELLIE CRUVER, the one gap on this file at 'no search recorded'. Four index searches, run...

Searched for: HIS MARRIAGE TO Nellie H. (Cruver) Cooper NELLIE CRUVER, the one gap on this file at 'no search recorded'. Four index searches, run before the newspapers, from BOTH sides: (a) 'New Jersey, U.S., Marriage Index, 1901-2016' (coll. 61253), ?name=Lewis_Cooper&name_x=1_1&count=50 - both name halves EXACT, no year bound: 6 rows, all read. (b) The same collection on the bride's surname alone, bounded to the year: ?name=_Cruver&marriage=1924&marriage_x=0-1-0&count=50 - 1 row. (c) 'Pennsylvania, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1845-1963' (coll. 61324), ?name=Nellie*_Cruver&count=50 - wildcard given name, whole state, no year bound. (d) The same collection on the bare surname, ?name=_Cruver&count=50, 49 rows, all read - run specifically to test what (c)'s zero meant.

Result: NEW JERSEY IS A DOUBLE NULL - THEY DID NOT MARRY THERE. (a) The six exact Lewis Coopers in the New Jersey index married Regina Sulkowski (1934), Sarah Deuley (1905), Sarah Lawley (1904), Helen C Brown (1971), Pauline Peart (2003) and Lois Haggerty (1944) - none is his. (b) The whole state holds one Cruver-ish bride in 1923-1925: Hannah Carver, Oct 1924, spouse W S. Not her. AND (d) IS THE FINDING WORTH KEEPING. (c)'s zero looked like a null and is not one. A bare Cruver search in coll. 61324 returns 49 rows for the whole Commonwealth, and every marriage place among them is Allegheny, Adams (Gettysburg), Montgomery, Delford or Smithton - western and southern Pennsylvania. ⇒ THE COLLECTION COVERS A HANDFUL OF COUNTIES, NOT THE STATE, AND NORTHAMPTON IS NOT ONE OF THEM. The same collection returned a zero for Arthur Robert Cooper's Lackawanna Co. bride earlier the same morning and that zero is now explained too. Neither may be written up as a null about a person. ⇒ With both index routes closed, the search moved to the newspapers - see the row below, which found it.

newspapers com 2026-10-19 · SIGNED IN. THE PARAMETERS CAME OUT OF [J.396], NOT OUT OF A GUESS. His obituary says verbatim “The couple observed their 60th wedding...

Searched for: SIGNED IN. THE PARAMETERS CAME OUT OF [J.396], NOT OUT OF A GUESS. His obituary says verbatim “The couple observed their 60th wedding anniversary in November”; printed 21 April 1985 ⇒ November 1984 ⇒ married November 1924. So: “Cruver” “Lewis Cooper” as two co-occurring exact phrases, 1924-1925, no place filter at all (the place was left open deliberately - New Jersey had just been excluded and Pennsylvania's county was unknown).

Result: ONE MATCH IN THE WORLD, AND IT IS THE RECORD → [J.561]. The Morning Call (Allentown), Sunday 16 November 1924, page 10, under MARRIAGE LICENSES: “Lewis Cooper and Miss Nellie H. Cruver both of Portland.” Downloaded (2941×3631), filed under Newspaper/Allentown PA Morning Call/, and the column read at 3×. The identification rests on the PLACE, not the name: [B.113] has him at Portland in 1918 and [D.666] has the family at Upper Mount Bethel Twp. Both parties are “of Portland”, a village. Her middle initial H. is now attested outside a census cell for the first time. A licence is not a marriage, and the column names no county - its nine entries mix Lehigh (Allentown, Emaus) with Northampton (Easton, Bangor, Nazareth, Portland). The courthouse is a lead, not a reading.

genealogybank 2026-10-04 · SIGNED IN (chris_2535). Obituaries collection: Lewis Cooper, Pennsylvania, 1985 (1 result).

Searched for: SIGNED IN (chris_2535). Obituaries collection: Lewis Cooper, Pennsylvania, 1985 (1 result).

Result: The same Morning Call obituary as [J.396] (indexed text; 'DIED 21 Apr 1985' is the publication date).

newspapers com 2026-10-04 · SIGNED IN. "Lewis Cooper", Pennsylvania, 1985 (15 matches).

Searched for: SIGNED IN. "Lewis Cooper", Pennsylvania, 1985 (15 matches).

Result: FOUND: Sunday Call-Chronicle 21 Apr 1985 p. B-22 (site: Morning Call p. 48) obituary [J.396], downloaded. The rest are Hanover/York (a Lewis C. Cooper Sr.) and Harrisburg items.

ancestry all 2026-10-04 · Lewis Cooper, b. 1899 +/- 1 New Jersey, d. 1985 Pennsylvania (71 results).

Searched for: Lewis Cooper, b. 1899 +/- 1 New Jersey, d. 1985 Pennsylvania (71 results).

Result: Newspapers.com Obituary Index row (relative Carl L.; d. abt 1985 Forks Twp); Find a Grave index (= [G.161]); SSDI: b. 13 Mar 1899, d. Apr 1985 (index row). Others are Virginia/Iowa look-alikes.

familysearch tree 2026-10-04 · Lewis Cooper, b. 1898-1900, father Samuel (20 results).

Searched for: Lewis Cooper, b. 1898-1900, father Samuel (20 results). (link)

Result: LYDP-QT2 Lewis Cooper, 13 Mar 1899 Oxford Twp, Warren Co. NJ - 20 Apr 1985 Easton; parents Samuel Jones Cooper GZD6-Z12 and Lulu Beer 9MF1-HZ6; spouse Nellie H Cruver. Agrees with [J.396].

findagrave 2026-10-04 · Lewis Cooper, b. 1899 +/- 1, d. 1985 +/- 1, all locations (10 results).

Searched for: Lewis Cooper, b. 1899 +/- 1, d. 1985 +/- 1, all locations (10 results).

Result: Memorial 167747314, 1899-1985, Northampton Memorial Shrine, Palmer Twp, Section N = [G.161].

ancestry all 2026-10-06 · Ancestry 'U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007' (coll. 60901): Lewis Cooper, birth 1899 +/-1 (name search; up...

Searched for: Ancestry 'U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007' (coll. 60901): Lewis Cooper, birth 1899 +/-1 (name search; up to 12 candidate records opened and filtered on given name and birth year).

Result: NULL - no record matching name and birth year among the candidates. Nearest: a Lewis Cooper b. 3 Jul 1900, d. Dec 1953 - not him (d. 1985).

Documents

D.290 1920 U.S. census, Upper Mt. Bethel Township, Northampton Co., Pennsylvania, ED 161, sheet 2B, lines 57-62 (dwelling 36, family 37) and 94-97 (dwelling 47, family 48) - NARA T625
D.379 1930 US Federal Census, Population Schedule - Stroud Township, Monroe County, Pennsylvania; S.D. 11, E.D. 45-19, sheet 4A; enumerated 4 April 1930 by Mrs. Olive Merring.
D.380 1940 US Federal Census — Palmer Township, Northampton Co., Pennsylvania, ED 48-111, sheet 7A, lines 4–5 (household 128): a two-person Lewis and Nellie Cooper household.
D.382 1950 US Census, Forks Twp, Northampton Co. PA (ED 48-72, sheet 2) — Lewis Cooper household (dwelling 15): Lewis 51 b. NEW JERSEY (foreman, vending machine manufacturing) + Nellie H. 46 + daughters Lois 14, Shirley 13, Joan 8 + son LeRoy 7. Full younger-children roster with first Shirley/Joan age attestations; re-confirms Lewis b. NJ (3rd attestation) — sharpens the D.380 1940-Palmer-couple conflict
D.383 1940 US Federal Census, Population Schedule - Upper Mount Bethel Township, Northampton County, Pennsylvania; S.D. 21, E.D. 48-124, sheet 16A; enumerated 16 May 1940 by LeRoy B. DePuy.
D.325 Ancestry — New Jersey, U.S., Compiled Census and Census Substitutes Index, 1643-1890 (625 hits) + U.S., Census Reconstructed Records, 1660-1820 (23 hits) — surname COOPER, Lived In = Morris Co., NJ, all given names. 648 of 648 results returned; 566 name+residence pairs extracted; 64 canonical individuals after consolidating spelling variants. Retrieved 2026-05-19.
D.665 1900 U.S. census, Oxford Township, Warren Co., New Jersey, ED 195, sheet 1A, lines 36-45 (dwellings 9 and 10) — NARA T623
D.666 1910 U.S. census, Upper Mount Bethel Township (part of), Northampton Co., Pennsylvania, ED 124, sheet 4B, lines 70-75 (dwelling 90, family 90) — NARA T624
B.113 World War I draft registration card, Lewis Cooper, Local Board for Division No. 1, Northampton Co., Pennsylvania (Bangor), serial 2623, order 2584, registered 12 Sep 1918 — FamilySearch image 3:1:33S7-81JP-75Z
J.561 The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.), Sunday 16 November 1924, page 10 — the "MARRIAGE LICENSES" column, nine entries.