Ivy Ernestine Cooper

Ivy Ernestine Cooper
March 22, 1928 – November 14, 2022
Ivy Ernestine Cooper passed away on November 14, 2022 at Horizon Care Center in Eckert, Colorado. She was 94 years old and had lived at Horizon for the last five years.
Ivy Ernestine Miller was born on March 22nd, 1928 to Ivy (Davis) Miller and Harvey Clay Miller in Hutchinson, Kansas, the youngest of five living siblings. Ernie, as they nicknamed her, spent her childhood in Hutchinson, Kansas, and she graduated from Hutchinson High School in 1946.
Ernestine was teaching by the time she was 21 years old in small schools near Hutchinson. She eventually moved to Chicago to work with the Christian Jewish Mission through the Moody Bible Institute. When Ernestine returned to Hutchinson she continued teaching and taking classes toward her elementary degree, obtaining her Bachelor of Education at Sterling College, Kansas in 1958.
In 1961 she married (Walter) Darrel Cooper. They had one daughter, Paula Sue, and one son, Darrel Lynn. The family moved to school districts in rural Nebraska, Kansas, and then eastern Colorado. Now Mrs. Cooper to her students, she went back to teaching in 1971. Ernestine began taking art classes which eventually landed her in a K-12 position teaching Art in the smallest public school district in Colorado at Lone Star.
Ernestine and Darrel divorced in 1977, and then she and the children moved from Littleton, Colorado where Ernestine had taken temporary employment. They ended up in Gallup, New Mexico and Ernestine resumed her career in public education at Juan de Onate Elementary for almost two decades.
In Gallup, Ernestine was a member of the First Baptist Church as well as their choir. In 1994 she retired, but as she sincerely enjoyed teaching, she kept substituting for Gallup-McKinley County Schools until she moved to Delta in 1996 to be close to her daughter and grandchildren.
While living in Delta, Ernestine became a 50-year plus member of the Delta Kappa Gamma teacher’s society. She was also a member of many charitable and prayerful mission groups over her lifetime, the final one being with the Gleaners of the Delta Christian Church. In her free time Ernestine enjoyed reading, word searches, detective shows, game shows, and playing Dominoes.
Ernestine was preceded in death by her parents, Ivy and Harvey, two brothers, Gene and Chuck Miller and three sisters, Elois, Paula Lorene, and Elda M Jordan, her nephews Melvin and Harlyn Thompson, great-nephew Duane Rigdon, great-niece Kim Chavez , sister-in-law Helen Miller, and brother-in-law Pete Jordan.
Ernestine is survived by daughter Paula Stalcup of Delta, CO, son Darrel Lynn (Ruth) Cooper of Albuquerque, NM, grandson Matthew E Stalcup (Jennifer) of Fort Collins, CO, and granddaughters Sarah Jones-Stalcup (David) of Harrisonburg, VA and Lydia Stalcup (Alex Hoffman) of Broomfield, CO, great-grandson Matthew J Stalcup of Glendale, AZ, great-granddaughter Emily Faith Stalcup of Fort Collins, CO, sister-in-law, Virginia Miller of Sedgwick, KS, and several nephews, nieces, great-nephews and great-nieces.
Final services and interment will be held in Hutchinson, Kansas on Saturday, November 26. Arrangements are under the care of Taylor Funeral Service and Crematory of Delta, CO and Fairlawn Burial Park of Hutchinson, KS.