Eugene Susanna Coppock*.

Prologue. Mother was born in Greenville in 1906. Two older brothers died in infancy. Her sister, Dorothy, four years older, was born in Pleasant Hill. The family company, the Greenville Gravel Company, later became American Aggregates was founded just eight years before. Because of her father's extraordinary life, she experienced from her earliest days, Florida, Canada, marvelous travels to Mexico, California, New York, Europe etc. She also lived a wonderful Greenville life which
lasted until her death in 2009 at the age of 102.

Eugene Susanna Coppock.
.
The First Years. When Granddad relocated to Greenville, they left the Quaker church and joined the Episcopal Church. (Granddad played the organ. Granddad was able to get the bishop from Cincinnati to Greenville to baptize me.). Mother attended the North School. She became extremely sick in the third grade. Granddad sent her to the Mayo Clinic. They found embedded tonsils. She recovered but lost a year in school. She loved horses (I met her trainer “Mugs” McGriff, real character.) She drove Granddad’s early automobile at the age of 10! Like the Park, she grew up in a wonderful neighborhood. Granddad had built, circa 1910, the beautiful house on Fourth Street. Same block, as our Park neighbors, the Browne's large family home. His brother, Joe, wife Ida, and mother’s cousin Josephine lived in a similar house across the street (many good memories). A block towards town, Granddad’s sister Aunt Ethel Brown, her husband and mother’s favorite cousin Margaret had built their house. Half a block over, in front of the library, Dad's father and mother had built their house. All houses were constructed between 1910 and 1920. All brick attractive homes, same motif as grandfathers. All were across the street from the Carnegie Library and Sinclair Memorial Hall. Pleasant Hill had moved to Greenville! Great neighborhood. Mother attended Greenville High School and elected vice president of her class! During her junior year, with her horse, she was off to Eastern Prep schools.

Out of Greenville Experiences. From Mother's first years, she had so many “Outside of Greenville” enriching experiences. First, before Granddad's successes, somehow the Pleasant Hill Quaker group managed winters in Florida. Like my experience, Mother visited Florida as a two-year-old. Then there were the wonderful years in Canada. Before Mother was ten, Granddad had constructed the beautiful lodge in Georgian Bay, Ontario. Every summer they woud drive from Greenville to Detroit, overnight ferryboat to Little Current and then three hours boat ride to the cabin. Summers in Canada. Then by 1915, spent three months in Florida. (How Granddad ever built the world's largest gravel company, half of the year out of town, with the old telephones and telegraph, a miracle!). Junior and senior years Mother was off to Dana Hall Preparatory School, and then Pine Manor College in Wellesley, Mass. (Most attractive young preppy). Later, the Arts Student's League in New York City. Then she attended Leslie College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she received a teaching degree. While I know little of those days, I do know that she took her horses with her on the train to Dana Hall. She wasn’t real happy there. She said that the girls ridiculed her, but that she could ride better than them. Because she had black hair and dark eyes they kidded her about being an Indian from over the mountains.
She loved New York, her time studying art and visiting museums. She lived, which then was the best location, on Riverside Drive. She returned to Boston for her degree and had a better time. During her Eastern years, she visited her cousin Bill Patty at Princeton. (I knew she preferred Princeton over Boston and Harvard). During her school years, she had many wonderful trips to Mexico, California, and the last of which was the 1933 Patty Family tour of Europe and England. She returned to teach kindergarten and marry Dad.

The Marriage. As I described in the WD. narrative, they eloped. They built the house in the Park, and then had a great marriage. Motherwas a full-time mother and the best housewife. She did not get involved in many local activities. Most interesting was that all three of her children from day one had to have jobs. Granddad Coppock had founded the Greenville Country Club. My cousins all play golf. Golf was not on mother’s menu. Even though Granddad loved the club, Mother believed there were more useful pursuits. Martha and Hilda had to learn to sew their own dresses. They both had to have jobs. I had to rake and mow people’s yards, work in my own garden and sell the produce. (None of us ever played golf). Full-time mother. She loved art and theater. So many of our “Out of Greenville” experiences were because of Mother. The Park, and the North end days, mother taught us to be independent. She never hovered! Great mother.

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