Paul Sheldon Cooper

PAUL SHELDON COOPER

Paul Sheldon Cooper We would like to extend our thanks to all who expressed their sadness and gave consolation to the family of Paul S. Cooper, who died on Thursday, January 27, 2011. Paul was to be 74 years old on February 5, and was a resident of Santa Fe County at Rancho Viejo for the past 6 years. He was married to Sheila for 49 years, and had a daughter, Jessica. Both presently reside in Santa Fe.

Jessica is married to Greg Shaffer and has two children, Willow and Ezra, who adored and were adored by their "Pop-pop." Paul was an Architect by training and education and was graduated from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. After being honorably discharged from reserve military duty and working at several private architectural firms, he joined the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, where he progressed to Manager of the Engineering Department.

During his 30-year career at the Port Authority, Paul worked on various projects culminating in the World Trade Center. He was on site during the 1993 bombing of the twin towers, but thankfully retired in 2000, before 9/11. Much to his on-going grief, however, many of his colleagues and coworkers perished during this catastrophe. Paul was a generous and kind man with many strong interests and talents.

He was a fine draftsman and renderer of watercolor paintings - a perfectionist with a marvelous color sense. He loved music - especially Beethoven and Rachmaninoff - and art, particularly the works and writings of fantasy and science fiction. He was a collector of many things - model cars, stamps, coins, recipes, word categories, pins, books, etc.

He loved baseball, especially the New York Yankees and Mickey Mantle, cold drinks, hot dogs, pizza, and peanut butter, and had an outgoing personality, stopping to talk with everyone, particularly if they were accompanied by young children, whom he loved. Though New York was Paul's original home, he loved Santa Fe's skies, clouds, mountains, and wild New Mexican sunflowers. He was our Mickey Mantle, doing everything that was necessary for our family team to succeed. We think of him and miss him every minute of every day.

A service was held at Rivera Family Mortuaries and Crematory of Santa Fe Funeral Options on Friday, February 4, 2011. Please sign the on-line guest book at the web address below. Arrangements by Rivera Family Mortuaries and Crematory of Santa Fe Funeral Options 417 East Rodeo Road, Santa Fe, NM 87505 (505) 989-7032 Santafefuneraloption.com

From: jessicabcooper@comcast.net
To: webmaster@Paranynj.org

Sent: Friday, May 13, 2011 2:34 PM
Subject: Remembrance for Paul Cooper

Hi, everyone,

We will be having a remembrance in honor of my dad on Friday, June 10th in New York. We know that some people were kept from participating in the ritual surrounding his passing because of the distance to New Mexico. Our hope is that this will provide another venue for saying a proper goodbye to him.

It will be an informal gathering where we plan to display our collection of photos of him, share the writings people sent to us about him, and generally celebrate his life. The entire remaining New Mexico contingent --Sheila, Greg, Willow, Ezra, and myself -- will all be there.

Details are as follows:

DATE: June 10, 2011
TIME: Any reasonable time that day
PLACE: Home of Warren and Vivian Gradus

180 LaSalle Drive
Yonkers, New York 10710

Please RSVP to me by reply email, including what time of day we can expect you. We hope that you can stop by. Even under the circumstances, it would be wonderful to see you.

much love,
Jessica

Webmaster Note: I put the address of the home where there will be an informal gathering. I never put an address but I made an exception for this time. There are also telephone numbers but I did not want to publish them. If anyone really needs to get the telephone numbers please contact me and I will verify if it's ok to give you the number.