Cooke, Anne Kirk

Born August 29, 1901, in Baltimore, Maryland, Anne Strother Kirk was the youngest of three daughters of Henry Child Jr. (1868-1932) and Edith Huntemuller Kirk. Her father ran their family business, Samuel Kirk & Son, a prominent silver manufacturing company. Anne spent her formative years attending exclusive all-girls schools (Bryn Mawr School and Oldsfield School), graduating from Oldsfield in 1920. She also attended the Peabody Conservatory of Music where she earned a teacher's certificate in piano in 1924. Her eldest sister, Edith Buckner "Buckie" (1892-1979), married artist Will Hollingsworth and wrote three books on gardening (see E. Buckner Kirk Hollingsworth Papers, A-149 ). Her second sister, Mary (1896-1941), was a childhood confidante of Wallis Warfield. In 1936, six months after Wallis divorced her second husband, Ernest A. Simpson, to marry King Edward VIII (who abdicated the throne and became the Duke of Windsor), Mary became Simpson's third wife. In 1977 Anne co-authored The Other Mrs. Simpson: Postscript to the Love Story of the Century, an account of Mary's life with Simpson based on Mary's letters to her family.

In 1928 Anne married Meyric Reynold Rogers, a well-known art museum curator. They had two children, Edith Elizabeth "Beth" and Meyric Kirk "Myke." The family lived in St. Louis, Missouri, from 1930 to 1940 while Rogers was director of the St. Louis Art Museum. Later they moved to Chicago when he accepted the position of decorative arts curator at the Chicago Art Institute. Anne's problems with alcohol manifested early in their marriage and eventually led to their divorce in 1947. She later joined Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.), becoming completely sober on June 9, 1950. Over the next thirty years she was married and widowed three times, all to recovering alcoholics. Her final marriage, in 1956, was to pianist, author, and journalist Charles Cooke (1904-1977). Cooke was well-known for numerous "Talk of the Town" articles in The New Yorker and for his piano primer, Playing the Piano for Pleasure . The couple moved to Cooperstown, New York, in 1970.

Anne was an active member with A.A. her entire life. She regularly attended group sessions and often strove to mentor recovering alcoholics. In 1989 she founded the Cooperstown A.A. Group for Women, serving as treasurer until the group disbanded in 1993.

Anne's daughter, Elizabeth "Beth" Rogers, was born in 1929 in Baltimore, Maryland. She married Eugene Maier in 1956. They divorced in 1962, severing all ties, including giving their two children up for adoption. In 1970 Beth became involved with Jay Tonia Lightfoot, a Native American man from Canada. Although it is not certain whether the two were legally married, she took the name Elizabeth Lightfoot. The two separated in 1979 and Beth relocated to Cooperstown to be closer to her mother. A prolific writer, Beth often worked with her mother on several projects, including co-authoring The Other Mrs. Simpson and editing her mother's fictionalized memoir, "A Special Kind of Horror."

Anne Kirk Cooke died in Oneonta, New York, on October 25, 2000, and soon after, Beth moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to be closer to her brother.

From the guide to the Papers of Anne Kirk Cooke, (inclusive), (bulk), 1860-2004, 1970-1997, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)