“Daddy Cooper”- The Abram Cooper House

            Westerville has a spotty record on historical preservation.  For every wonderfully preserved building, there are gaps.  Otterbein University, a cornerstone of Westerville since 1847, has its share of lost buildings.  One of them is now a parking lot at the corner of Grove Street and College Avenue.  In the memory of many folk, this was the site of Lambert Hall, Otterbein’s fine arts building.  An imposing building, Lambert Hall occupied the spot from 1909 to 1979, when the opening of the Battelle Center made it redundant, and it was demolished.

             What occupied that space before 1909?  Before Lambert Hall, the site was a private home owned by one Abram Cooper (1824-1915).  Cooper was an early Westerville resident, born the youngest of nine children in a family that arrived in Westerville in 1808.  The Presbyterian family were members of a church at Central College.  Abram settled in town and lived there for seventy years.  Member of the school board or the village council, or both, Cooper was a carpenter and cabinetmaker.  Many nineteenth century homes were designed and built by Cooper.  He was also sexton of the Otterbein Cemetery.[1]

            In later years, Cooper also worked as a landlord. The house he built in 1883 began taking student boarders, both men and women.  Known to his boarders as “Daddy” Cooper, he and his wife “Mother” {Sarah} Cooper gave lodgings to students for twenty five years.  A seemingly endless parade of Rikes, Burtners, Kumlers, and Klines occupied rooms in the College Avenue house.  A few ladies did manage to squeeze in as well.  In 1900,  Mr. and Mrs. Cooper had four “roomers,” likely all students, plus an elderly woman the census taker listed as a “border.”  The border appears to have been the mother of Cooper’s son-in-law.  Of the four students, one, Grace Brierley, was female.  So much for Otterbein’s (then) strict gender segregation policy.

            There is no way of knowing whether June 1, 1900 was a typical day at the Cooper House.  By the census of 1910, the Cooper House was gone.  Daddy Cooper sold the house and lot to Otterbein in October of 1907.  “It was with torn emotions that he watched the tearing down of the home to make room for the conservatory,” posited his 1915 obituary.  Daddy Cooper, like his latter day neighbors, would have to rely on memory to recreate the Cooper House.

[An exhaustive search for pictures turned up only this 1900 photo of College Avenue, looking east.    A few details of the house can be seen in the far right behind the two trees. [Jim Seitz, Westerville Public Library]

[1] Westerville Public Opinion, December 9, 1915.

https://cdm15800.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15800coll1/id/27067/rec/42;  “The Cooper House Sold,”  Otterbein Aegis, October 1907.