The Family of the late Ambassador Harriet Eleanor Cooper, former Chief of Protocol of the Executive Mansion during the administration of former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, has announced that a Solemn Mass and Celebration of Life of the deceased will be held on Wednesday, July 15, 2020. The body will be removed from the Stryker Funeral Home on Tubman Boulevard at 8:00 am and the services will take place at Trinity Cathedral, 33 Broad Street in Monrovia at 9:00 AM. Interment will follow at the Jacob (Jake) Samuel Milton family cemetery in Upper Caldwell, Montserrado County.
Ambassador Cooper, who died at her residence at Mamba Point on Saturday, June 6, 2020, was the daughter of the late Honorable Robert Taylor and the late Madam Maude Pennoh Taylor. She grew up in Monrovia with her siblings: the late Mrs. Pearl Burnett Baker and Mrs. Adah Taylor Clarke and attended Demonstration School on Clay Street before being sent to England and later the United States where she completed her education. In 1969, while in the United States, she married Francis B. Cooper, an electrical engineer who, upon their return to Liberia, served as Managing Director of the Liberia Electricity Corporation.
Eleanor Cooper was Student Counselor and later served as Vice Principal of the W.V.S. Tubman High School in the Monrovia Consolidated School System. Leaving WVST/MCSS, Mrs. Cooper founded her own educational institution, FOUNDATION HOUSE, in the family residence off Tubman Boulevard in Oldest Congotown. More than 800 kindergarten and pre-school children received their educational foundation from Teacher Eleanor Cooper’s Foundation House.
As was the case for many Liberian families with young children, the civil war in the 1990s forced Mrs. Cooper to seek refuge away and she return to the United States with four of her sons to settle there temporarily until the war ended. While in the U.S. she worked as a vocational and employment program coordinator for Community Services for Autistic Adults and Children (CSAAC). In 2002, she was promoted to the position of Director of CSAAC’s Vocational and Employment Program.
Mrs. Cooper returned to Liberia during the transitional years to help consolidate the peace. She joined the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s Campaign Team and travelled all over the country with the then Presidential Candidate Ellen Sirleaf to win the hearts and minds of Liberians to vote for Madam Sirleaf to become Liberia and Africa’s first democratically elected female President. Serving initially as Appointment Secretary of Madam Sirleaf, Mrs. Cooper later became Deputy Chief of Protocol in the Executive Mansion and later Chief of Protocol with the rank of Ambassador.
After the death of Ambassador Cooper, the family has set up a Foundation Scholarship Fund in memory of Ambassador and Teacher Harriet Eleanor Cooper. The Fund will support needed children in pre-school and kindergarten. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, sympathizers and well wishers may contribute to the Fund.
Contributions can be made Mr. Himien Cooper via E-Mail: [email protected] and Ms. Sharon Cooper via E-Mail [email protected].