My beloved sister 💋 I love you ❤️ 

Notre Dame vs. Navy in Baltimore ---- 2010

Prior to heading out for dinner at, I am guessing now, but VERY LIKELY, The Shrimp Box in Point Pleasant,NJ~ Upon our arrival home, the fire had burned down to nothing ,but the SEA OF CHOCOLATE was truly an ARTWORK to behold. The whisper soft carpeting, not so much, the floor of the INSIDE of that walk in fireplace wasn't so dreaming with an odd mixture of ashes and chocolate.And my father's spewing forth with very UN~Christmas~like language sent several of us with small people in EVERY direction! That man hates nothing more than "an awful mess" or "a tragic mess'. Somehow, the rest of the holiday gatherers were blessed with the amazing ability in Laugh or Cry situations ~ to err on the side of LAUGHTER. Same thing for safety~ we err on ITS side, Kill it or Cure it, we forge on to "Ga'head. TRY!" Christmas dinner was always kind of stressful. Still at the "kid's table" at 25, I was stupid enough to ask "WHAT has to happen for me to get a seat in THERE?" and someone quipped "you're grandmother has to DIE" and he finished with please pass in the CORRECT DIRECTION, everyone, GAWD, were you all raised by wolves....?" Perhaps I was just FINE in Kiddie land! Once the dinner was finished, dishes, pots, pans and counters clean as if Xmas dinner had never happened, desert was laid out self serve style on trays around the house and, inevitably, someone would say" Go get TRIVIAL PURSUIT"! 

continued....I'd sell my.... JIMMY CHOO shoes for a photos or 10 of those trees. She expected no ovation, she KNEW her trees took the breath away. I lose my patience 3/4ths the way up an 8 footer. How she did this still blows my mind. Our stockings( all HUMAN BEINGS expected for Xmas dinner had one hung) we hung on the original beam of this amazing fireplace. One of her stauncher requirements for filling stockings was that each child ( under 21) had a Russel Stover SOLID chocolate Santa Claus in the toe of their stocking. There was quite some commotion the evening my father lit the fire when the stockings had been PARTIALLY filled, beginning, of course, with that chubby chocolate fellow, for the cocktail hour we had, ( when cocktail hours STILL HAPPENED)

The plaque that says "SEAGLASS" , as Katy Carmichael Mohr will tell you(!), is what my Mom named their house "at the SHORE" in The Borough of Spring Lake NJ. No one has EVER been happier in a home, EVER. Each morning, she was on the beach hunting pieces of glass, tumble tossed by the ocean into smooth sided, glorious miniature works of art. Then she would FILL LARGE table lamps of clear glass with her beauties. I LOVE that whomever lives there now, some 32 YEARS later, have kept her name! WHAT a BEACH BUNGALOW.The formal LR had a WALK in fireplace( for cooking, we supposed) and it was the singular part of the Original SEAGLASS that exists. The ceiling in that room was 2 full stories high and my mother INSISTED on Fresh Xmas trees "as CLOSE to the ceiling" as she could find it. The men, mostly my father and Brian Rickert, would erect the tree and put the lights on it, but it was Mom ALONE who, ladder and "the REACHY THING" (I use one now, for high cupboards!) who hung each and every ornament, meticulously over several days and nights. Watching her "upping and downing" as Ryan and Cam called it, was almost ( they imagined!) like watching "that guy who painted the Mona Lisa" step back every few strokes, to check his work. NO ONE ever suggested she relocate one a single piece. She liked the OCCASIONAL visitor in the room so she could tell the stories of whatever she was hanging at the time, but, for the most part, this was HER almost a religious experience, to interrupt her was to interrupt someone almost "in prayer". We knew we could use that room again when the creche, the same, dear old, exhausted looking one they's had since they MARRIED in 1950, was out of its bunting , all but Jesus, of course, and displayed. Oh, and the joint needed a serious clean up and re~storage of the TOWERS of packaging that held all from the made-by-baby hands ornaments to the real Venetian Glass from trips to Europe they took each year for MANY YEARS.I'd sell my.... JIMMY CHOO shoes for a

~~~~~~~~******THE OG OF Jersey Girls 
              has left this earth for
                                                       the SEAGLASS in the Sky.*****~~~~~~~~~~~

She was so kind to me every time I saw her. She has such a heart of gold. 

Visitation

Funeral Mass

Barbara was preceded in death by her parents, John White and Elizabeth Ruth (Beck) White. She is survived by her loving husband, John Cooke; her two children, Jeffrey (Shelly) Cooke and Caryn (Gary) Newcomb; her three grandchildren, Mindy (James) Cooke-Bowman, Keely (Josh) McClain and Tanner (Mark Thompson) Newcomb; she was also “Nanny” to Michelle, Sephie, Abbie, Jeffrey, Grady, Ryan and one on the way; her dear sister, Joan (Donald) Rickert, many cousins, nieces & nephews and endless friends she felt were family too. She was preceded in death by her father, Valentine John White; her mother, Elizabeth “Ruthy” Beck White and her two beloved grandsons, Ryan Cooke & Cameron Cooke, who she missed dearly.

OBITUARY

Barbara W. Cooke

February 2, 1932 – June 12, 2018

Nelsen Williamsburg

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