MINNIE COOPER’S LETTER

Minnie Cooper was the maternal grandmother of our friend, Warren Beene. He gave permission to share information about her including her last letter to her church.

Minnie Cooper was born in 1870 on George Washington’s birthday, February 22.  Her father was a doctor.  She helped him and learned a lot about medicine.  She “doctored” her neighbors and friends most of her adult life.  She left a handwritten book of treatments and medicines for her children.

Minnie’s family moved to Breckenridge, Texas, in 1878.  She married Warren Leonidas Cooper in 1889.  They farmed in the Harpersville community south of Breckenridge before moving to Abilene in 1919.  W.L. Cooper died two years later.  Minnie was independent and resourceful.  She began operating a boarding house.  She knew how to take care of herself.  Minnie had been a widow for 59 years when she died.

Minnie started a Primitive Baptist Church in Abilene which met twice a month.  She was the church clerk.  If preachers did not preach from the Bible, she did not hesitate to tell them to get it right.

Minnie went back to the Harpersville community to the home of one of her daughters when she became ill.  She died there in 1948 at the age of 78. She was buried in Abilene.

This letter is her farewell to her church in Abilene.  It is unedited and as she wrote it.

Minie Cooper’s letter:

“My Dear Brothers and Sisters of our Church

I am feeling very sad this afternoon.  I feel like my meeting with you in our dear little Church is just about over.  I want to pen these lines to you as my last token.  You will never know how dear you all are to my heart.  I want to beg you to go on lovingly and peaceably trusting in our blessed Savior to guide you, if you will follow in the shadow of his wing, love and sweet fellowship will abound with you.  I do beg God to protect our little Church and may he never suffer anything to mar her peace and happiness.  You have all been so lovely to me, you have strewn flowers all along my path and made my thorny road much easier for me to travel.  You have been a light to my dim eyes, and made me have something bright to look forward too.  I have looked to our meeting from one time to the other with the sweet hope of meeting you all at the House of God.  Now my dearly beloved, when you look over your church record I have so poorly kept don’t forget the work of a poor old sinner saved by the Grace of God, if ever saved at all.  My hope is in what dear Jesus has done for me, how disobedient I have been all my life and how very kind and merciful he has always been to poor unworthy me.  Oh!  God forgive me I pray.  May my last mind be on his goodness and his dear children here on earth.  I have many dear friends whom I love and want God to be merciful to them and may his blessed truth be preached here in our church and all over this land.  Now may I bring these lines to an end.  This may be the last line of words I will ever express to you.  My last word is trust in Jesus.  He will lead you safely on to the end, May God bless every one of you and my many dear friends every where in the church and out of it.  Farewell in the Lord.  Your sister in hope of meeting you all in heaven

Minnie Cooper”