Lucille Virginia Cooper

Lucille Virginia (Parks) Cooper, age 92, went home to be with the Lord on Monday, February 19, 2018 with her loving family by her side. Funeral services will be held at 1:30 p.m. on Friday, February 23, 2018 at the Mitchell Family Funeral Home in Marshalltown, Iowa. Visitation will be from 5:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, February 22, 2018 also at the funeral home.  Lucille Virginia Parks was born on February 1, 1926, in Uniontown, Pennsylvania to Rev. Harold and Emma (Hull) Parks. Lucille was the eldest of three children. Her brothers were Fuhrman and Robert (Bob) Parks. She moved to Iowa at a young age, with her family where her father pastored the Carlton Brethren Church of Rural Garwin for 11 years. She met her future husband, Gerald Cooper, at the church, and was later married on July 22, 1942 in Bethany, Missouri. To this union was born three children, Vernon Cooper, Virginia (Ginny) and Lorraine (Lori). They made their home on the home Cooper Farm for approximately 58 years before moving to Marshalltown in 1978. They farmed together as a team their entire life before retiring.  Lucy was a wonderful wife, mother and grandmother. She was extremely gifted musically with a great voice and musical instrument abilities. She and her brother’s, Fuhrman and Bob Parks, sang as a trio in the jails on Sunday afternoons and also on a local radio station.  Gerald and Lucille’s home was always an open house to lodge all of the guests who might come to the Carlton Church. They also took in many other children to help raise or keep for a period of time to experience the life of a farming community. She was best known for her Homemade Chicken and Noodles.  Lucy was a wonderful example of what a loving Christian wife and mother should be, and she will be greatly missed by all who were blessed to know her.  Left to cherish her memories is her children Vernon and (Connie) Cooper of Branson, Missouri, Virginia (Ginny) Nielsen of Marshalltown, Iowa and Lorraine (Lori) and (Dr. Kennedy) Fawcett of Ames, Iowa. Grandchildren, Byron and (Regina Hopkins) Cooper, Ryan and (Shanna) Cooper, Heather and (Randy) Engel, Todd and (Heather) Nielsen, Tricia and (Mark) Littlejohn and many loving great grandchildren, two sister in-laws, nieces, nephews and friends.  Preceding her in death, parents Rev Harold and Emma Parks, loving husband Gerald Cooper, two brothers Fuhrman and Robert Parks and two grandsons (Kyle and Chad Cooper).  Memorials may be directed to the family to be designated at a later date.