In Memoriam

Mary Langben Cooper
1935-2025

COOPERSTOWN—Mary Langben Cooper, beloved mother and grandmother, died peacefully in her sleep on November 6 after a years-long decline due to Alzheimer’s. She spent her final days surrounded by her daughters, grandchildren and wonderful team of caregivers. She had recently celebrated her 90th birthday.

Mary was born in New York City in 1935 to Mary Anderson Luke and Harry Alfred Langben. She attended The Brearley School and graduated summa cum laude from Vassar College, where she majored in English, before becoming a copy editor for several major book publishers in New York. It was during that time that she met Henry S.F. Cooper Jr., a young “New Yorker” magazine writer, and the two were married in 1966.

Over the next 10 years, they had three daughters, Elizabeth, Hannah and Molly, all of whom followed in Mary’s footsteps by attending Brearley. The family spent summers in Cooperstown, where Mary loved playing with her children on the shores of Otsego Lake and getting to know the other mothers. The playgrounds of Central Park held a special place in her heart for the same reason.

In her youth, Mary was an excellent athlete. She headed Brearley’s Athletic Association and played on many sports teams. During the summers, she was a champion tennis player at East Hampton’s Maidstone Club and served as a “ball girl” at the club’s prestigious women’s invitational tournament, which attracted some of the top female players of its day.

As her children grew up, Mary devoted more time to her interest in fabric arts, and loved quilting and weaving particularly. In the 1980s, as the crisis of homelessness in New York City grew, she returned to her Episcopal faith and found deep fulfillment in volunteering with food and shelter initiatives run by local churches. She ultimately joined Christ & St. Stephen’s Church on the Upper West Side, where she helped to create a program that provided bag lunches to as many as 200 people five days a week. For more than 30 years, she managed the program, ensuring there was enough food, working with others to fill each bag with a balanced meal, and greeting the men and women who lined up to receive them.

Mary is survived by her daughters and her four grandchildren, Henry and Annie Cooper of Cooperstown, Nikko Bolyard-Cooper of Atlanta, and Thomas Cooper of Great Barrington. She was predeceased by her former husband, whom she divorced in 2001 and subsequently remained close to, and her sister, Ann Langben Willlard.

Donations may be made in Mary’s name to the Christ & St. Stephen’s Church Brown Bag program at https://www.csschurch.org/give.