Joseph B. Cooper 1905–1951

Result: 'No matches found' - no memorial for him under Joe, and his mother Rosa Caroline (Leonard) Cooper, buried at Walnut Springs in February 1918 [F.368], has none either (searched the same day; Find a Grave holds NO Cooper at all with a death in 1917-1919 in Bosque County). TWO BURIALS AT THE SAME TOWN, THIRTY-THREE YEARS APART, BOTH NAMED ON CERTIFICATES, AND NEITHER ON FIND A GRAVE. That is a statement about the site's COVERAGE of Walnut Springs, not about where these people lie - and it is worth saying so, because a reader meeting two separate nulls would otherwise start doubting the certificates. NEXT: browse Oak Grove Cemetery, Walnut Springs directly on Find a Grave (a cemetery search constrained to Bosque Co. was attempted and the site ignored the county filter, returning a Throckmorton Co. cemetery instead - see Rosa Caroline (Leonard) Cooper); or the Bosque County Historical Commission cemetery survey, which is the kind of source that records a small-town burial ground in full.

Result: NULL FOR A DRAFT CARD. The only record of HIS on page 1 is the Texas death certificate already held as [F.345]. Three Young Men's cards appear and none is his: Joe Cooper b. 19 Jun 1905 Barber, Alabama; Joe Cooper b. 25 Dec 1905 Washington; Joe Magar Cooper b. 16 Mar 1905 Winston, Mississippi - and a James B Cooper b. 22 Jan 1905 at Cumby, Texas, who is a different man again (there is also a 'J B Cooper, abt 1905 Texas' at Cumby in the 1930 census on the same page; the two go together and neither is ours). A 1905-born man should have a card, so this is a null to be explained rather than accepted: he may be indexed under a mangled given name, or the card may be filed in a state he was passing through - he was in CALIFORNIA in 1925 [J.402] and back in Texas by 1951 [F.345], and the 1930, 1940 and 1950 censuses have all failed to find him too (see the row below). ⇒ The pattern across five searches is consistent: a single labouring man with no household of his own is nearly invisible in a name index. The 2026-10-16 row below names what is left: city directories for Littlefield, Walnut Springs and Ontario/Upland.

Result: NULL ON ALL FOUR. (a) Lamb Co. in 1950 holds the Virgil J, Herman M, James R, Johny R, Arthur G and Archie L Cooper households, two Coppers and three unattached people - no Joe B. ONE LOOSE END, NOT A CANDIDATE: "Odie C. Cooper", b. abt 1901 Texas, at LITTLEFIELD, relation "Partner" - an unattached man of roughly the right age in exactly the right town. "Odie C." is not a plausible mis-reading of "Joe B." and the age is four years out, so it is recorded as a loose end only, the same way "Ware Cooper" is recorded at Egbert Arthur Cooper. (b) The Texas-born Joe Coopers of his age in 1950 are at Ruth (Nevada), Hardin, Franklin and Bexar Cos. - all heads of families. He died SINGLE [F.345]. (c) Bosque Co. in 1940 holds fourteen Cooper households and no Joseph or Joe of his age. The nearest is "J F Cooper", b. abt 1905, but he has a wife Velma and three sons; our man died single and childless. (d) In 1930 only two Texas-born Jo* Coopers of his age exist in the whole index - Joseph E. at Houston (wife Sarah F.) and Joe at Precinct 5, Leon Co., FLORIDA (wife Marie) - both married heads of household. ⇒ A single labouring man who moved between Texas and California is close to the hardest kind of person to find in a census index, and three decades of him are now searched and null. (e) THE 1930 CALIFORNIA PLACE SEARCH WAS THEN RUN TOO: surname Cooper, no given name, residence SAN BERNARDINO, CALIFORNIA (exact) - 150 rows read across three pages, covering Atolia, Barstow, Bear Valley, Bloomington, Chino, Colton, Cucamonga, Fontana, Highland, Mission, Needles, Ontario, Redlands, Rialto and San Bernardino city. NO Texas-born Joseph or Joe of his age anywhere in them. AND UPLAND ITSELF - the town where his father was killed at a well in April 1925 [J.402], and the likeliest place for a son who stayed - WAS RUN AS ITS OWN EXACT-TOWN SEARCH AND HOLDS EXACTLY ONE COOPER IN 1930: Thomas Cooper, b. abt 1851 Kentucky. He had left California, or was never enumerated there. WHAT IS LEFT: Texas and California city directories for Littlefield, Walnut Springs and Ontario/Upland; a WWII draft registration (he would have been 36 in 1942, inside the Fourth Registration's 1877-1897 band only if older than recorded - so the Young Men's registration of 1940-47 is the one to check); and the Victorville/Yucaipa end of San Bernardino Co., which the three pages read did not reach.

Result: 99ZS-V3X Joseph Benjamin Cooper, b. 3 Dec 1905, d. 19 Oct 1951 Lamb Co., Texas; no spouse or children on the profile. Siblings on the tree: Thomas Henry (1901-1931, Oregon; m. Thora Belle Owens; daughters May Laverne 1922, La Vell 1924, Gemmy Lee 1926, an unnamed Cooper 1930-1930), Lena Mae (1903-1987, m. Eldridge 'Edd' Monroe Fox), Roy Lee (1910-1914).

Result: FOUND: 'Texas, Deaths, 1890-1977' 1:1:K3C5-NRF, Joe B Cooper, d. 19 Oct 1951 Littlefield - downloaded -> [F.345]: SINGLE. Also Texas Death Index 1:1:VZN2-8S6 (same death).

Result: NULL - no memorial located (not evidence that there is no stone at Oak Grove, Walnut Springs).