LaGrange native celebrates 102nd birthday

Published 11:00 am Friday, August 13, 2021

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

A LaGrange native turned 102 on Thursday.

Alma Cook, a resident of Leisure Living of LaGrange, wore a tiara as she sat at a table in the dining room. Due to her condition, a regular interview with Cook, nicknamed “Cookie,” wasn’t possible. Staff members spoke for her.

“I’ve been here since 2009 I think, and she has read the whole Bible, through and through,” staff member Sherry Bailey said. “You don’t find too many people who have read the whole Bible. She gave me a Bible and told me to read it and try to live by it.”

Bailey also said Cook loves chocolate.

“Her motto is if you want to be treated right, you have to treat people the way you want to be treated,” staff member Stacy Laye said. She explained that Cook believes this is a way to live a long life.

A former manager of the facility, Nancy Collier, said that Cook used to be a teacher. She also said Cook has a living daughter, Melva Cosper, who lives in town, and a living son, George Cook, who lives in Mississippi.

Staff members also shared that Cook doesn’t believe in wasting food, that her fondest memories are of her family, that she had arrived at the facility in 2006, and that she was very social and loving.

Cook was given a birthday cake.

In 1919, when Cook was born, the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, authorizing Prohibition, was ratified. The same year, Congress approved the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which would guarantee women the right to vote, and sent it to the states for ratification .

The first world war had ended the year before.