Ruth Mohr Cook

Raleigh, surrounded by loving family and friends. Born in Berlin, Germany, Ruth escaped death at the hands of the Nazi government through the valiant efforts of concerned English citizens, in the historic 1939 Kindertransport. She spent the war years in England, reuniting with her parents, Ilse and Sami Mohr, in New York City in 1944.

After graduating from George Washington High School, she briefly attended New York University before accepting a position as a copywriter at the Arnold Constable department store. Through her lifelong friend Ruth Elsner she met her future husband, John Oliver Cook, Jr., then a doctoral candidate and instructor in Psychology at New York University. On October 31, 1954 they were wed at the Plaza Hotel in New York, and shortly moved to Champaign, Illinois for Dr. Cook’s first faculty appointment, followed by a year at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. In 1957, they moved to Raleigh, where Dr. Cook accepted an appointment as an Associate Professor of Psychology at North Carolina State University. Son Roger was born in 1957, and daughter Judy in 1959.

Ruth and John involved themselves in the pressing issues of the day, combating the evils of racial segregation and seeking to improve the lives of North Carolinians. In 1966 Ruth accepted a position as the legislative lobbyist of the newly formed State Council for Social Legislation, beginning a career in public affairs that would span the next thirty years. Her colleagues consistently voted her among the most effective lobbyists serving. After the untimely passing of her husband John in 1971, Ruth chose to seek elected office, representing the citizens of Wake County in the North Carolina General Assembly. She was elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives in 1974, the first woman so chosen. She served with distinction for five legislative sessions over the next decade, championing the causes of the underprivileged, children, and the mentally ill. She was awarded the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, the highest civilian honor in North Carolina, for her service to the citizens of our state. In 1984 then Governor James B. Hunt appointed her to the North Carolina Utilities Commission, where she adjudicated matters involving public utilities in North Carolina. Upon her retirement in 1992, she continued to lobby in the North Carolina legislature on a part-time basis.

Ruth loved life, and she celebrated the joy of each day. She was an avid tennis player and beachgoer. She dearly loved her many close friends, who were her second family, some for fifty years or more. Well into her seventies she travelled, making new friends wherever she went. She never met a stranger.

She had the joy of two wonderful grandchildren, John Greenberg, and Mara Greenberg, born to her daughter to Judy and son-in-law Dr. Ross Greenberg. She visited them often in New Jersey, and delighted in sharing new experiences with them. She very much enjoyed spending time with her son Roger and daughter in law Amy Brannock, regularly attending theater performances, social functions, and concerts with them. With them she further developed her deep love of the arts and of the creations of the human spirit.

In the last decades of her life she served with distinction as a board member for North Carolina Public Television and the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Ruth helped support the well-being of North Carolina’s citizens, and blessed the lives of her friends and family. She is survived by daughter Judith Greenberg and husband Dr. Ross Greenberg, and grandchildren John and Mara Greenberg, of Haddonfield, New Jersey; and by son Roger Cook and wife Amy Brannock, of Durham, North Carolina.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to Hospice of Wake County, 250 Hospice Circle, Raleigh, NC 27607, and to the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina, 3808 TarHeel Drive, Raleigh, NC 27609. Deep appreciation is extended to the private caregivers who provided so lovingly and skillfully for her in the final eighteen months of her life. Funeral services will be held at 11:00 a.m., April 1, 2011, at Temple Beth Or, 5315 Creedmoor Road, Raleigh, NC 27612.

Condolences may be sent to www.brownwynne.com