Photo Album: Birth, Boyhood, and College Years

Mr. and Mrs. John Gray (Dr. Cook’s grandparents) and their two children, Daisy (Dr. Cook’s mother), and Bertram (Dr. Cook’s Uncle Bert).

Grampa Gray in his later years.

Carl Hague (nephew of Daisy Grey) in a Thomas Automobile, ca. early 1900’s

Dr. Cook’s mother, Daisy (right), and uncle Bertram (left), ca. 1890

Lulu Gray and Veda Hague in a Thomas Automobile.
Dr. Cook and his sister Mildred stayed with these families for a short time after the death of their mother.

Carl Becker and Lulu (niece of Dr. Cook’s mom) on an early 1900’s Indian motorcycle.
Could this be the seedling of Dr. Cook’s love of motorcycles?

Charley Cook’s (Dr. Cook’s father) four sisters: Esther, Mattie, Sadie, and Ida.
Dr. Cook’s Aunt Sadie Cook went on to be a missionary in India and spent many more years overseas.

Ida Hague and Aunt Sadie Cook

Sadie Cook’s cancelled Indian passport

Aunt Sadie and Dr. Cook’s father, Charley, relaxing in rocking chairs.

Charles Andrew Cook as a young private in the Spanish American War, ca. 1898, Knoxville, TN. He went on to fight in Cuba.

A young Charles Cook in uniform.

Charles and Daisy Cook (Dr. Cook’s parents)
They were married in Freemont, CA, on an unknown date.

House in California where Mildred Cook (Dr. Cook’s older sister) was born on May 3, 1902

Mildred as a young girl.
Photo taken in Toledo, Ohio, while visiting relatives.

Daisy, Mildred, and Charley Cook
Mildred is approximately a year old in this photo.

Mildred (Dr. Cook’s sister) and Daisy (Dr. Cook’s mother)

Daisy, Mildred, and Charley Cook on a summer vacation.
Freemont, California, ca. 1908

Charley, Daisy, and Mildred

The Cook’s visiting the Armstrong’s and the Hague’s in Ohio.
Dr. Cook would go on to live with Vernon and Mollie Armstrong shortly after his mother died.

House where Robert Andrew Cook born.
Santa Clara, CA, ca. June 7, 1912

Cradle Roll Certificate from Santa Clara Methodist Church Sunday School

Mildred and Robert
An admiring relative took the one-year-old Dr. Cook to a Baby Beauty Contest at a local Annual Cherry Festival where he went on to win first place!

Robert Cook taking a bath (one year old), ca. June 1913

Postcard image of Methodist Episcopal Church, Santa Clara, CA (location of Daisy Cook’s funeral).
Daisy died of complications of childbirth on October 25, 1913. Her approximate birthday was March 19, 1880.

Robert learning to walk while visiting family in Los Gatos, CA.

Dr. Cook learning to walk with his big sister, Mildred.

The first Christmas after Daisy died, ca. December 1913
Mildred (Dr. Cook’s sister), Lulu Hague, Ida Hague with Dr. Cook on lap, and Charles Cook (Dr. Cook’s father)

Dr. Cook and Carlie Hague
Robert and Mildred stayed at the Hagues’ house in Los Angeles, CA, while en route to Ohio in April of 1914.

Mildred and Bob, ca. 1914

Charley (Dr. Cook’s Father), Mildred (Dr. Cook’s sister), and Bob on the Hague’s porch in 1914.
Mildred made Bob’s outfit — she would have been about 13 at the time.

Bob and Mildred Cook, ca. 1914

Dr. Cook with “The True Mother Goose” book as a boy.

Charley, Mildred, and young Robert riding bicycles in Toledo, Ohio.

Aunt Molly with a child (unknown)

Charley, Mildred, and Bob, some months after Daisy passed away.

Dr. Cook (approximately age 4), his “Aunt” Molly Armstrong, and his sister Mildred, in Toledo, Ohio.

“Aunt” Molly

Mildred and young Robert in their Sunday best.

Molly Armstrong, Mildred, and Bob (age 5)

The Setzler’s wedding photo, ca. 1899
The Cook children went to live for a time on the Setzler’s farm in Fremont, Ohio

Young Bob feeding a sheep

Ohio Barn with little Bob standing in front

Vangie and Bob, ca. 1916

Family photo titled, “Our baby grownup”

Young Robert starting school

Dr. Cook as a school boy standing in front of Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio.
Robert attended the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church (Rev. H. E. Nelson) on Cedar Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio (near Euclid Avenue). Dr. Cook accepted the Lord as his savior here when he was six years old (1918), and was shortly thereafter baptized in Lake Erie at Beulah Park, Ohio.

Below are photos of Dr. Cook’s church and its missionary conferences that no doubt shaped his life and attitudes towards missions.

Preschool years were filled with violin lessons and practice two hours a day, with tutoring provided by professors at the school where my father was the janitor. I was, I admit, a little shaken when my violin teacher took me aside one day and said, “Robert, I must tell you that you will never be a great violinist; but if you study and practice faithfully, you may turn out to be a pretty fair fiddler.

A baptism
Mr. Shuman, Mr. Nelson, and Margaret.

A baptism
Mr. Patterson and Mr. Stokes.

Christian and Missionary Alliance meeting

Another Christian and Missionary Alliance meeting

Inside of Bob Cook’s home church, Christian and Missionary Alliance Church

Missionary conference: China

Missionary “League of Nations”

Dish crew #2

Dish crew #3

“Service not serv-us”

“Bingo”

“Some Scullions”

South American Missions Conference

Missions Conference group visiting from Boston

India

“You’ve got mail!”
Ohio mailman, ca. 1920

Robert’s (front row) Sunday School in Old Fort, Ohio (near Fremont, Ohio)

Dr. Cook (age 8) on the farm
Summer of 1920 in Fremont, Ohio.

Young Dr. Cook in a sombrero

Young Dr. Cook pulling a wagon

Young Dr. Cook with the chickens

Young Dr. Cook feeding the chickens

Charley in his Cuban sombrero

The Cook’s lived with the Setzler (left), and Hague (right) families on-and-off for a few years.

Fremont, Ohio, ca. 1920
Left to right: Frank and Esther Setzler, Aunt Sadie, Young Robert (age 8), Mrs. Totheroh, Rev. Andrew Totheroh, and Mildred
Rev. Totheroh married Charles and Daisy Cook, and Dr. Cook was named for him (Robert Andrew Cook).

The Cook’s standing by a car in Fremont, Ohio
Left to right: Aunt Sadie Cook, Robert, Charley Cook, and Mildred

Left to right: Mildred, Robert, and two aunts: Pearl and Sadie Cook

Robert and his father, Charley Cook

Charley Cook

Robert (Age 8) and Charley Cook

Fourth grade brought me to Toledo, with six months study that led to promotion to the next level. Now to a farm with another aunt and uncle, where I spent the academic year in seventh grade, having skipped fifth and sixth grades.

Winter on the Setzler’s Farm
Freemont, Ohio, ca. 1924

Dr. Cook and his father on the Setzler farm

Young Dr. Cook

Eighth grade brought me back again to Cleveland, to stay with my father, Charles (they always called him Cholly) Cook. By the time for me to enter the tenth grade, we moved to Toledo, where I began a precarious career as “chief cook and bottle washer” for my father. How the dear man ever lived through those meals, I don’t know. But God was merciful to us both, and I spent the three remaining years of high school there on Toledo’s East Side, living in what was then called a “light housekeeping room”–a room with a kitchen stove, a cold water sink, a bed and some cupboards.

Robert and his father, Charley, in Cleveland, Ohio

Postcard picture of Spencerian Commercial School, on Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio.
Robert and his father lived in a basement apartment provided as part of his father’s compensation for working there as a janitor.

School picture from the Spencerian Commercial School in Cleveland, Ohio

Down the street from the Spencerian Commercial School

Dr. Cook’s Junior High graduation. Cleveland, Ohio

High-school-aged Dr. Cook and his father

Charley Cook going up the stairs to his and Bob’s Nevada Street apartment
Toledo, Ohio

The Cook’s Nevada Street Apartment
Toledo, Ohio

Nevada Street apartment where Dr. Cook and his father lived while Mildred was at Moody Bible Institute

A photo of Mildred as shown in the room photo above (look closely!)

I suppose my best memories of my father date from those three years. For one thing, I noticed that he faced his own personal problems with his Lord and with the hope the Christian faith affords to the believer. Sometimes, with the unconscious cruelty of the very young, I would look at him and say, “What’s the matter with you, Pop?” Often he would sigh, and say, “Oh, I guess I’m just lonesome for your mother.” (Charley Cook always carried the torch for his Daisy, never remarried.) Like as not, however, he would then reach over to the book case nearby, pick out one of the scores of song books he owned, and begin to turn the pages in search of a song that fit his mood. Soon I would hear him sing, “Does Jesus care when I’ve said goodbye to the dearest on earth to me…” And then it wouldn’t be long before he would look over at me while I stood at the sink washing the dishes and say, “Hallelujah, my boy, one of these days I’m going to see your mother again, and we’ll walk down the golden streets of glory together.” My father had learned how to look heavenward and conquer his blues.

Dr. Cook’s High School graduation
Toledo, Ohio.

My father linked his discipline of me to his commitment. I can still hear him say, “My dear boy, it would be far easier for me to say ‘Yes’ to you, than to say ‘No’ but I have to give account to God for you…I have to build your life for Him!” He never wavered in the commitment to his Lord, to his boy.

Commitment must have been the reason, then, for what I experienced many mornings in the early hours, say five or five-thirty A.M. I would awaken to hear my father praying. There he knelt, before the little gas heater that was used to warm the room on wintery days. “God bless my boy today, my motherless boy,” he would plead softly, “Keep him from harm and sin. Lead him through the day. Help him to grow up to be a man of God!”

He never knew I heard him, not that I observed him through half-closed eyes as he rose from his knees and wiped the tears from his eyes, straightened his tie, picked up his lunch pail, and went out to work.

That scene, more than sixty years ago, is clearly etched in my memory. Charley Cook’s motherless boy is still grateful, and, like his father, still praying.

Mildred visiting from Moody

Mildred while studying at Moody

Dr. Cook’s father, Charley Cook, working at the Toledo Machine and Tool Company

The car involved in an accident in which all of Dr. Cook’s tools were stolen, temporarily putting him out of the car business.

Cold days in Chicago, Illinois

Dr. Cook as a young student in Chicago

Dr. Cook laughing with friends while studying at Moody

Robert and his sister Mildred.
She was around to “keep on eye” on Bob while he was at Moody. He enrolled in Moody Bible Institute in August of 1928. At that time, he the youngest student ever accepted into the school.

Dr. Cook as a young student at Moody

Mildred and Robert.
The two met for prayer in Lincoln Park across from Moody Church on Sundays before the morning service.

Robert and his sister Mildred in snowy Chicago

Robert and Charley Cook, ca. 1928

Dr. Cook at Moody.
During those days, he played violin on WMBI radio and led church choirs.

Bob’s sister, Mildred

Bob’s Moody Graduation photo, ca. 1930

Bob, Mildred, and Velma in Chicago

Dr. Cook’s Moody Bible Institute Graduation, ca. 1930

Robert worked on cars while at Moody to save money for Wheaton College.

Dr. Cook while studying at Wheaton College, ca. 1934

Dr. Cook’s wife-to-be, Coreen Nilsen.
Coreen was the sister-in-law of Torrey Johnson, who was the pastor of Messiah Baptist Church. He recruited Bob to direct the choir while he was a student at Moody Bible Institute… the choir in which Coreen sang.

The young couple in Chicago, IL

Coreen Nilsen nearby her home in Chicago, IL

Summer fun
(Left to right) Coreen Nilsen, Evelyn Johnson (her sister), and Torrey Johnson (Evelyn’s husband).

Glen Ellyn Tabernacle Sunday School picnic, ca. 1933
While studying at Wheaton College, Dr. Cook pastored a congregation at Glen Ellyn Tabernacle in Glen Ellyn, Illinois (1933 – 1934). The new suburban area of Glen Ellyn, Illinois was considered West Chicago in those days.

Glen Ellyn Tabernacle Church Board Photo
Left to right: Mr. Partridge; an unknown gentleman; Mr. Benson; and Pastor Robert Cook. Bob lived with the Partridge family during these days. For a short while, he also lived in one of the church’s Sunday School rooms.

Glen Ellyn Tabernacle church dinner
This photo was taken while Coreen and Bob were dating. Coreen is seated at the end of the table on the left, Bob is sitting across from her on the right.

Glen Ellyn Tabernacle group shot
Dr. Cook is in the back row to the left.

Glen Ellyn Tabernacle photo
Dr. Cook is seated in the center.

Robert and Coreen Cook’s wedding day, September 24, 1935, in Chicago, Illinois.
After graduating from Wheaton College, Dr. Cook Married Coreen Nilsen. The honeymoon consisted of driving Bob’s father, Charley Cook, back to Ohio while staying with relatives en route. They then continued on from Ohio to Dr. Cook’s first pastorate in Philadelphia, PA.