Obituary of Kenneth Lee Cooper

Kenneth Lee Cooper died at his home in Melbourne Florida – with his family around him – on Tuesday, April 10th at the age of 92. The cause was histiocytic cancer; he had been ill for some months but was very much himself –same intelligence, humor and charm – to the end of his life. Ken grew up in Kansas City and on a family farm near Wichita. He joined the Navy in World War II and served on the submarine U.S.S. Whale. He graduated from the University of Kansas (on the G.I. Bill) and then joined the United States Diplomatic Courier Service (with an attached case traditionally hand-cuffed to his wrist). He traveled to some of the most colorful (and dangerous) places in the world, including repeated trips over the Khyber Pass from Islamabad, Pakistan to Kabul, Afghanistan when that was mostly a dirt road. In 1957, traveling through Athens, he met – and soon married – Florence Muha of Brooklyn New York. A graduate of Barnard College and Oxford University, she just happened to be traveling in Greece, visiting relatives. They recently celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. Soon after the wedding, he became a traditional Foreign Service Officer and served at embassies in Germany, Yugoslavia, Pakistan, London England, Hong Kong and the Philippines. They retired to Oriental, North Carolina but went on to maintain homes in Melbourne, Florida and Norfolk, Connecticut. The Coopers had two children, Hilary of New York City and Lakeville, Connecticut, and Christopher (“Topher”) who died in 2004. “Ken was smart, broadly knowledgeable (especially about history and diplomacy) and wonderfully funny,” according to his son-in-law, Chris Crowley. “He loved to laugh and did it a lot, right up to the last days of his life. He was such good company, always.” His daughter, Hilary, said, “My parents had one of the closest and happiest marriages ever. They were inseparable and rejoiced in each other’s company. It helped that my father was one of the kindest and least egotistical men I’ve ever met, and that my mother simply adored him. The loss of their son Topher at 44 was the central sadness in their long life, but it made them closer, if anything.”