Eugene George Cooper 1933–1977

Result: FOUND -> [B.133]. Registered 21 Mar 1951, Local Board #5, Roberts Co., S.D.; Selective Service number 39 5 33 50. SINGLE at 21 Mar 1951 (item 13, read at 3x) - eleven months after [D.852] and sixteen months before he entered the USAF [B.126]. The window in which he could have married and fathered a son is now MARCH 1951 x 1960, outside California. AND IT PUTS HIS FATHER George Melville Cooper AT BROWNS VALLEY, MINNESOTA (item 4, next of kin) - the first evidence of that man in Minnesota before he died there in 1962. ACCESS NOTE, recorded as a RESULT not a null: Fold3 first refused the image for want of a membership ('not run, no subscription'); no account was created and no trial started. The maintainer signed in to Fold3 mid-session and the card was downloaded at once.

Result: NOT an earlier marriage - it is the 1969 one already known from the newspaper licence [J.463], and it supplies the DATE the catalog lacked: 7 Aug 1969, Santa Barbara County -> [C.158]. AND IT IS INDEXED TWICE, once under each of the bride's surnames - Editha M ANDERSON and Editha M BUTTNER. That is how this index works (other couples in the same 29 rows appear twice the same way), so it is one marriage, and it hands Editha Margot (Cooper-Wolff) Cooper a second surname. FOR THE Y-LINE: no other marriage of a Eugene Cooper born about 1932-34 exists anywhere in California between 1960 and 1985. With [D.852] showing him SINGLE at 17 in April 1950 and his USAF service 1952-62 [B.126], the window for a marriage and a child narrows to 1950 x 1960 - BEFORE this index begins - or outside California. A narrowing, not a closure: the index cannot speak for the 1950s, which is the decade he spent in the Air Force.

Result: FOUND -> [D.852], image downloaded, filed and read on census_stitch stitches. Garfield Twp, ED 55-11 sheet 72 line 18, house NE 1/4 Sec. 9, dwelling serial 33: 'Cooper, Eugne', hired hand in the George Whempner household, 17, NEVER MARRIED, farm hand, 78 hours. WHAT IT DOES FOR THE Y-LINE QUESTION: he is single and living away from home in April 1950, and he entered the USAF on 23 Jul 1952 [B.126]. So there is NO ROOM for a marriage or a child before April 1950, and any child - the thing that would keep George Melville Cooper's male line alive - must fall in 1950 x 1969, with his known marriage licence at the far end of that window [J.463]. The window is now bounded at both ends rather than open. THE SPELLING WENT THE OTHER WAY FROM EXPECTED: the plate itself reads 'Eugne' at 5x, so Ancestry's odd index spelling is FAITHFUL and the enumerator made the slip. Meanwhile the head's surname is 'Whempner' on the plate and 'Whepner' in the index. One sheet, both kinds of divergence.

Result: No earlier marriage of his indexed; with mother Pauline only the 1940 census household and the NUMIDENT (already known). Null for a pre-1969 marriage.

Result: LY89-7PB Eugene Cooper 1933 - Dec 1977, child of George Melville Monroe Cooper (LHC1-STB) and Pauline Janisch; no spouse or children on the profile. Siblings there: Robert Frank (1922-1922), Evelyn Anna (1923-1992), Helen (1926-), Lorraine Rachael (1927-2000), Clarence (1931-1945). Leads only.

Result: Wire-service stories of 21 Dec 1977 (Las Vegas Review-Journal, Florence TimesDaily, San Antonio Evening News) - presumably the Vandenberg fire - not opened; nothing else identified.

Result: Santa Maria Times 19 Aug 1969 p. 2, marriage licences -> [J.463].

Result: Memorial 16880920, Lompoc Evergreen Cemetery -> [G.612]; no family panel. Its Ancestry link led to the headstone application [B.126] (applicant his wife Edith M.).

Result: No child is named in any of them.

Result: NUMIDENT 'Eugene George Cooper', b. 6 Mar 1933 Eden, S.D., parents George M Cooper and Pauline K Janisch, application May 1949, death Dec 1977 (index only); California Death Index Eugene G Cooper d. 20 Dec 1977 Santa Barbara Co. (index only); 1950 census, Garfield Twp, Roberts Co. SD, a Eugene Cooper b. 1933 in the George Whempner household (not opened).

Result: Lompoc Record 22 Dec 1977 obituary -> [J.459]; fire stories 21 Dec (Lompoc Record p. 1, Santa Maria Times, Press-Telegram p. 1) not filed.