Women's History Month

Betty Ward Cooper

Continued from March 17, 2022

Betty Ward-Cooper, deserves recognition as a portrait of Women's Month. Her grandparents and parents lived and raised their families in the South under Jim Crow laws and yet succeeded as farmers, small business owners that included a water-well, small engine repair and seamstress businesses. She grew up during the era of segregated schools and public accommodations. Like other African Americans during those years she too experienced being denied a seat in a restaurant and movie theater because she was a Black American. Nevertheless, she did not allow the conditions her environment dictated to determine her future and she worked hard to achieve high academic goals. She believed education was the key to success and the road to rise above the adversity's society had illegally imposed upon her and upon other. A teacher she was determined to be, and a teacher she became, teaching professionally for over 43 consecutive years, teaching young minds the purpose and value of an education. Though retired, her teaching continues. Her grandparents and parents were ministers and leaders in the church she attended as a child, and she credits them for the strong foundation in Christianity they instilled in her that guided her as she grew into adulthood. She learned as a child what it meant to have faith in God and trust in His word. Betty said she learned a great deal from her late husband, Elbert G. Cooper. He was a business owner and a Deacon (Prayer Ministry) at the White's Ferry Road of Church of Christ in West Monroe, LA. She said: "He was the perfect man for me. He taught me a great deal about life. When you left his presence, you felt better about yourself and about life; he was so good at this. My husband was my "right arm," my number one supporter, my loudest cheerleader, and my favorite comedian." As a mother and as a wife to her beloved husband, she nurtured her family in the most loving of ways that one might regard her as a virtuous woman, as spoken of in the Book of the Bible Proverbs Chapter 31. A virtuous woman, who can find? For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and her tongue is the law of kindness. Betty is not the kind of person who seeks vain glory but walks in the fear of her God and she says she acknowledges him and seeks Godly direction in everything before she puts her hands to it. Betty's children adore her and call her blessed and her late husband worshipped her, and she was at his side when he passed away on April 4, 2016. Every mile Betty has traveled on her journey in life is too extensive to be chronicled in this one article, but we hope this article will give the reader a glimpse into the life of Betty Ward-Cooper, and can agree that she is worthy of recognition during Women's History Month 2022.