Jessie B. Cooper, C.S.B.

Portrait by Linn Ball. Gift of the Association of Mrs. Jessie B. Cooper’s Students.

Biography

JESSIE B. COOPER was born in Brooklyn, New York, but later moved with her family to Nebraska City, Nebraska. In 1883, while living in the Midwest, she met and married Frank Cooper, a law school graduate. The Coopers first heard of Christian Science in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1890, when Frank experienced a healing overnight of a back ailment which had plagued him since childhood. Jessie had Primary class instruction from Mrs. Eddy’s student Alfred Farlow, and in 1906 was in the Normal class under the Christian Science Board of Education. On July 5, 1897, thousands of Mrs. Eddy’s followers visited her at Pleasant View. Mrs. Cooper, who brought her two children — Will, age nine, and Helen, seven — smiled up at Mrs. Eddy, who stood on the balcony and returned their smile. “I saw for the first time the real Mother-Love,” Mrs. Cooper wrote of that moment. “This Love was everywhere, like the light, but it was divine, not mere human affection.” When Jessie Cooper and her children returned to their hotel, a boil which had been causing little Helen great anguish had completely disappeared.

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