Bio-Johnston, Allie-Cooperrider

Home

Alvaretta (Johnston) Cooperrider
(1853-1944)

Alvaretta (Johnston) Cooperrider was born on Oct. 22, 1853 in either Brownsville, Licking County or Glenford, Perry County, OH, the daughter of Seth R. and Isabel (Minor) Johnston.

On April 24, 1872, Alvaretta married Alva Lewis Cooperrider (1847-1923), son of Lewis and Dorcas (Spencer) Cooperrider.

Their seven children were Arthur Johnston Cooperrider, Isabelle "Belle" Ice, William Roland "Rod" Cooperrider, Flora Boring, Lewis Herbert Cooperrider, August "Gus" Edwin Cooperrider and Ethel Shrider.

The Cooperriders settled in Hopewell Township, Perry County. Alva was a farmer, and he ultimately owned four tracts of land in nearby Bowling Green Twp., Licking County. Circa 1910, he and his son Rod formed a sand company, filling railroad cars by hand to ship locally mined sand to Zanesville, Muskingum County, OH.

Alvaretta and Alva were active in the Good Hope Lutheran Church of Glenford. They are mentioned in the 1993 book, 175 Years of Good Hope, published by the church, seen here.

The Cooperriders suffered the tragic death of son Arthur, who was unmarried, in 1911, at the age of 36. He had come down with a nervous condition at age seven which caused seizures, and lived with the condition for nearly two decades. A correspondent for the Somerset Press eulogized that "So far as I know he had not a single enemy in the world."

Alva died on May 13, 1923. He is buried at the Good Hope church graveyard.

Alvaretta survived her husband by more than two decades. She passed away on Jan. 9, 1944, and was laid to rest with Alva.

They and their offspring are referenced in J.L. Cooprider's 1952 book, Chronicles of the Families of Cooperider, Cooperrider and Cooprider and Their Descendants.

Son Gus served in World War I and worked for the Clark Grave Vault Company of Columbus, OH and also as a hardware dealer in Johnstown, OH.

While unloading mail sacks from a B&O Railroad train at Glenford in 1911, son Rod lost a finger from his left hand and suffered deep cuts on the other hand. While trying to "secure the mail sacks ... before the local engine pulled across the tracks," said the Somerset Press, "he slipped and fell toward the engine when his hands became entangled in the cross head of the engine."

Thornville's Town Hall and town block

Daughter Belle Johnston married John Ice. John was said by the New Lexington Daily News to be "one of the best-known farmers in that section of Perry County." He and his wife Belle owned a 75-acre farm in the northeast quarter of Section 4, Township 17, Range 16. They also owned a 1930 Model-A Ford. Active in the Good Hope Church near Glenford, their names adorn the bottom of a memorial stained glass window there today, seen at right.

Grandson Wayne Ice also died a violent death, at age 21, when he was crushed while chopping down a tree in Glenford in January 1925.

Grandsons Maurice "Guss" Cooperrider and Joseph C. Cooperrider were veterans of World War II.

Tragically, Guss was killed in 1950 when his automobile collided with a stalled coal truck near Thornville.

In July 1950, son in law Virgil Boring and his son Charles R. Boring co-purchased a funeral home in Thornville, Perry County. The home later was known as Baker-Boring Funeral Home and today is the Boring-Sheridan Funeral Home. Active in the community, Charles served on the Northern Local School Board of Perry County, OH, circa 1958. He and his family are profiled in the 1980 book, History of Perry County, Ohio, Illustrated, and in the 1977 volume, History of Thornville.

Family grave in Glenford

Grandson Kermit Boring (seen here), who passed away in 2003, was a retired farm salesman and grain elevator inspector. Said the Columbus (OH) Dispatch, "He was employed by the State of Ohio Department of Agriculture, Mike Clum Auctions of Rushville, and was active in antiquing and the chair caning business." He is pictured and profiled in the May 1984 volume, A Touch of the Past: The People and Places of Perry County. His late wife Dorothy was an elementary school teacher in the area for 31 years.

The Borings' daughter Barbara (Boring) Bauer has been a volunteer with the Palatines to America Library in Columbus, OH. She has done extensive research into our family's German roots, and has authored three excellent summaries on our website -- The Immigrant Brothers: Meyndert and Carsten Fredericksen -- The Immigrants: Jacob and Anna Elisabethe Weber -- and The Kochertal Party.