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Obituary

Family loses its mother, wife, artist

ELIZABETH COOPER: 1949-2005. The 55-year-old wife and mom of two ran an art group and enjoyed spending time with her children and their friends.

By MARTY CLEAR
Published February 25, 2005

BAYSHORE BEAUTIFUL - Elizabeth Cooper's circle of friends was an artistically minded group. But even among them, she was considered exceptionally talented.

Her husband, architect Don Cooper, would often bring renderings from his office for his wife to complete.

"On a lot of projects, I would do the black and white, and then I'd bring them home and she'd do the color," he said. "Her primary talent was producing wonderful works of art."

Mrs. Cooper, known as Libby to her friends, died in her sleep on Feb. 9 at her home in Bayshore Beautiful. She was 55. The cause of death is unknown.

"The night before, we watched a television show, and she went with my daughter to take my daughter's boyfriend home around 9," Mr. Cooper said. "She went to bed and at about 11 she got up and turned on the air conditioner. I got up at about 7 to go to work, and I think she was sleeping."

Mr. Cooper received a call that afternoon from his daughter's boyfriend, saying that Mrs. Cooper had passed away.

An autopsy has been performed, but it may take weeks to get the test results. Mr. Cooper said he assumes her death was related to her heart, given that she had lived with a heart condition for 20 years.

The Coopers met in the early 1970s when they were architecture students at the University of Tennessee. Their relationship started to blossom in Venice, Italy, where they were on a foreign study program with other UT architecture students.

They married in 1973 and moved to New York City, where they worked as architects for different firms.

They returned to Knoxville, where they worked together before starting their own firm, Cooper Partnership. Eventually, they relocated to Ventnor, N.J., near Atlantic City, where the couple worked on the design of several casinos. Mrs. Cooper designed the Claridge Hotel and Casino on Park Place.

But they longed to return to the South, and in 1987 decided on Tampa when friends invited Mr. Cooper to open a firm with them. Cooper Johnson Smith opened in 1987.

Mrs. Cooper was not part of her husband's new venture. Instead she opted to be a full-time mother to their son, Andrew, and occasionally took on architectural projects or helped with her husband's renderings.

Mrs. Cooper was always a kid at heart and didn't want the stress of a job, her husband said. Besides creating art, she loved spending time with friends of her children Andrew, now 20, and Kate, 18.

"She was very generous and she liked to have fun 100 percent of the time," Mr. Cooper said.

In recent years, she shared her passion for art with a group of friends, informally known as the Fruits and Nuts. They'd gather together once a week to create still-lifes and landscapes.

"They'd get together in the morning and draw, and then they'd go to lunch," Mr. Cooper said. "Her talent was such that she could pretty much complete a beautiful work of art in that time frame."

Beside her husband and children, Mrs. Cooper is survived by her mother, Theda Gee.

[Last modified February 24, 2005, 09:35:09]