[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 29 (Monday, February 15, 2021)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E134]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





                     REMEMBERING MARTHA HAYS COOPER

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. STEVE COHEN

                              of tennessee

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, February 15, 2021

  Mr. COHEN. Madam Speaker, I rise to remember Martha Hays Cooper, 
known as ``Ookie,'' a remarkable woman and friend and the wife of our 
colleague Jim Cooper, who passed away last Thursday in Nashville. I 
include in the Record for history her husband's words in tribute:

       Martha Hays Cooper died peacefully at home in Nashville on 
     Thursday, February 4, after years of struggling with 
     Alzheimer's. ``Ookie'' was married to Representative Jim 
     Cooper for almost 36 years, mother of their three amazing 
     children, Mary (Scott Gallisdorfer), Jamie, and Hayes, and 
     grandmother of the incomparable Jay.
       Martha was born on September 13, 1954, the second child of 
     the late Dr. A.V. Hays and Dr. Martha Hays Taylor of 
     Gulfport, Mississippi. Her siblings, Art Hays (Debbie) of 
     Gaithersburg, MD, and Mary Hays Peller (Steve) of New 
     Orleans, survive her. Martha graduated from Sweet Briar 
     College in 1976 and from Mississippi State in 1980 with an 
     M.S. in ornithology. Her first job was in a cubbyhole in the 
     attic of the Natural History Museum, the Bird Division of the 
     Smithsonian, staffing the first two editions of the million-
     selling National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North 
     America. An adventuresome soul, Martha smoked cigars in 
     swamps to repel mosquitoes, made lifelong friends in Buenos 
     Aires, taught children and studied Puffins for the Quebec-
     Labrador Foundation, protected Least Terns on Gulf of Mexico 
     beaches, camped in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and 
     worked the Galapagos Islands for World Wildlife Fund, all 
     while keeping an African-Grey parrot named Baroot in her 
     kitchen.
       Martha lived in Georgetown and drove a 1971 Robin's-egg-
     blue Volvo P1800E when she met Jim, the youngest congressman 
     in the U.S., who proposed at a White House Christmas party. 
     Part Audrey Hepburn, Ali MacGraw, and Penelope Cruz, Martha 
     was wary of politics until she lived in Shelbyville with 
     Jim's mother for a few months in 1984 to manage Jim's first 
     re-election campaign. The experiment worked. They married on 
     April 6, 1985, followed by the birth of Mary Argentine in 
     1990, John James Audubon in 1991, and Hayes Hightower in 
     1995. Martha loved Mardi Gras, Galatoires (``the big G''), 
     hurricanes and snow, peonies, Little Cayman Island, Ernie 
     Banks, homemade popovers, Radnor Lake, friends in the Query 
     and Centennial Clubs, Aretha Franklin and Paul McCartney, 
     Standard Poodles (Ruby, Sirius Black, and Romeo), Cicadas, 
     golf, City House's belly-ham pizza, families of Crows, Prince 
     Charles, her Cardinal-red 2003 Mini-Cooper, and the 
     Hermitage, serving as Regent of the Ladies' Hermitage 
     Association. Her favorite president was Barack Obama; 
     favorite bird: Upupa Epops.
       Martha's charm and optimism were heroic, eclipsing her 
     illness. She ALWAYS smiled and said thank you. She loved car 
     travel; on bumpy roads she'd say ``this makes me wiggle.'' In 
     recent years, she drew wobbly hearts on everything . . . with 
     a Sharpie when she could find one.
       The family is grateful to Martha's main caregiver, Sandy 
     Mathers, her friend of 25 years, as well as newer friends, 
     Heather Tavasti and Alyssa Action. The team at Alive Hospice 
     was godsent.''

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