Harold S Cooper 1916–1975

Result: NOT FOUND, AND THE NULL IS BOUNDED ON BOTH SIDES. (a) No Harold S. Cooper anywhere in the 1950 index at that age. The 18 rows are Harold J (Wisconsin), Harold K (Georgia), Harold (Indiana), Harold M (Missouri), Harold R (Park Ridge, Bergen, N.J., b. New Jersey, Head), Harold H (Englewood, Bergen, N.J., b. New Jersey, enumerated as a SON of Harold M and Hilma), Harold (Texas), Harold (Illinois), Harold (a lodger at North Wales, Pennsylvania), Harold (Oregon, b. England), Harold U (Pennsylvania), Harold C (Buffalo, N.Y.), Harold (Saratoga Springs, N.Y., b. West Virginia), Harold M. (Panama Canal Zone), Harold D (Arkansas), Harold G (West Virginia), Harold C (Oklahoma) and Harold D (Washington). The two New Jersey candidates are both excluded on their own rows - the middle initial is R, not S, on the Park Ridge head; and the Englewood man is a son of Harold M. and Hilma, while ours is the son of Albert Alvin Cooper Albert Alvin Cooper and Sadie Ann (McDavitt) Cooper Sadie. (b) He is not in Sussex County at all. The 84 Coopers enumerated there in 1950 include the whole of Alvin George Cooper Sr's Wantage household (Alvan G, Letha M, Alvina M, Fred G, Alvan G jr, James G) and Sadie Ann (McDavitt) Cooper Sadie's Sussex Borough household - both of which this catalog holds as [D.905] and [D.904] - so the list demonstrably reaches his own family. There is no Harold among the 84. => He had left Sussex County by April 1950 and is not indexed under Harold at his own age. His father Albert Alvin Cooper had died in 1949, which is the obvious occasion for a move. AND THEN A THIRD SEARCH, BECAUSE HIS OWN OBITUARY CONTRADICTS THE NULL. [J.256] says "Mr. Cooper was born in Sussex and was a resident of Wantage for 30 years" - which, from a death in April 1975, puts him at Wantage, Sussex County, from about 1945. He should therefore have been in Wantage on 1 April 1950, in the same township as his brother Alvin George Cooper Sr ([D.905], dwelling 249). So the surname was dropped entirely: (c) collection 62308, given name Harold with NO surname, Lived In Sussex County (_sussex-new+jersey-usa_2837, residence_x=_1-0), birth 1916 plus or minus 4 - 23 rows, of which the first 7 are genuine Harold matches and the remainder are ranked matches on other criteria (a Madeline Mayer, a William Lighty) rather than Harolds at all. -> THE SEVEN ARE: Harold Goble (Newton), Harold Mathews (Byram), Harold C Garris (Stillwater), Harold E Ordway (Frankford), Harold Guisewhite (Newton), Harold Snover (Lafayette) and Harold K Treible (Fredon). NOT ONE IS AT WANTAGE, and not one carries a surname that could be a mangling of Cooper. => SO THE NULL SURVIVES A SEARCH DESIGNED TO DEFEAT A MIS-TRANSCRIBED SURNAME, AND IT NOW STANDS AGAINST A STATEMENT IN HIS OWN OBITUARY. That is the useful part of this search: the gap is no longer "we could not find him" but "he is not there, and he was supposed to be". THREE READINGS ARE OPEN AND NONE IS ADOPTED. (1) He was away on 1 April 1950 - he was a World War II veteran who served in Germany and who died at the Veterans Hospital, Castle Point, N.Y., so institutional or service enumeration elsewhere is entirely possible, and such people are enumerated where they were, not where they lived. (2) The obituary's "30 years" is a round number supplied by a survivor and may simply be loose - he is survived by five sisters and two brothers and no wife or children are named, so the informant was not someone who had lived with him. (3) He is indexed under a different given name. WHAT IS LEFT TO TRY: browsing the Wantage enumeration districts sheet by sheet, which defeats all three readings at once and is the same move [D.883] t3 recommends for Myrtle E. (Cooper) Current; a complete-county list for Orange County, New York, where he died; and Bergen County, in case the index has his middle initial wrong and one of the two look-alikes is him.

Result: His memorial 2642661 (Harold S Cooper, VETERAN, 22 Apr 1916 - 26 Apr 1975, Long Island National Cemetery, plot 2D 2663) - already [G.371]. Nothing new.

Result: NULL: no profile for him on page 1 (English, Alabama and other Harolds).

Result: sisco Family Tree gives his middle name as SAMUEL ('Harold Samuel Cooper', b. 22 Apr 1916 Andover; d. 26 Apr 1975 Montgomery; unsourced). Records: VA BIRLS Death File and U.S. Veterans' Gravesites (22 Apr 1916 - 26 Apr 1975), Social Security Applications and Claims Index (not opened - names parents), SSDI, Find a Grave index, private member photo.

Result: New Jersey Herald 30 Apr 1975 p. 2 = the obituary already held ([J.256]). The rest are Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, South Carolina and English papers. No Middletown (Times Herald-Record) hit.

Result: New Jersey Herald 30 Apr 1975 (= [J.256]); others Texas, Georgia, Connecticut, Arkansas. Nothing new.