Charles David Cooper

COOPER,
CHARLES DAVID
Charles David Cooper, of Coraopolis, PA, died peacefully on August 28, 2023, at the age of 82.  Born on December 2, 1940, he was the fourth and youngest child of Charles Agnew Cooper II and Margaret Wickenhiser Cooper; brother of the late Susan Cooper Anderson, the late Frederick (Fritz) Alexander Cooper, and the late Anne Elizabeth (Betsy) Cooper Beile; proud uncle of David, William, and Timothy Anderson, the late Laura Cooper and Georgia (Gigi) Cooper, and Kathleen Reed, Jennifer Burkholder, and Cynthia Durkin; long-time friend of Margaret Dunn, Colleen White McShane, Li Hua Li, Wesley Krsul, and Warren Kelley; and known to many. Charles was a 1958 graduate of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.  He attended Yale University and Carnegie Mellon University.  He worked at his father’s and grandfather’s engineering firm, Edeburn, Cooper & Co., for many years and eventually formed a company of his own, C D S Associates, Inc., with Margaret Dunn and Kenneth Scharf. While at C D S Associates, Charles was a professional engineer and professional land surveyor, and in 1997 he provided the engineering design for the first-of-its-kind passive treatment system to neutralize the acid mine drainage for an abandoned coal mine at Jennings Environmental Education Center in Butler, PA. After 26 years, the system is still functioning. He was also involved in founding the volunteer Slippery Rock Watershed Coalition and the non-profit Stream Restoration, Inc., which have been involved in restoring streams in PA impacted by abandoned coal mines. He was active for many years in Coraopolis and Moon Township, attending Coraopolis Council meetings and Moon Historical Society meetings, doing research on various topics of interest at the Coraopolis Memorial Library, and participating in the Golden Age Club at the Coraopolis VFW.  He was extremely honored to be the recipient of the Spirit of Girl Scouting Award in 1999. He enjoyed reading about and discussing many diverse and esoteric subjects, including Norse mythology, especially with respect to the North American Book of Icelandic Verse; Mars, the Moon, Space exploration and many other scientific breakthroughs; and Joan of Arc, as depicted in Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc.  His top ten personages of all time were Nicholas Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Edward Teller, John Mather, Spencer Wells, Robert Stinnett, and Joan of Arc. During his life, he also developed and held an avid interest in the Cooper and Wickenhiser family histories and genealogies. Special thanks to all his friends at Harmony Haus in Ambridge, especially Mark Pazzanita and his daughter, Cortney, and to his Three Oaks Hospice team, Lorra Mammone, Maria Keiper, Rose Sabbatini, Andrew Kurzawski, and Matthew Sniezek. To all who loved Charles, he would say, “God bless you and all your loved ones!”

Visitation for Charles will be held at the Copeland Funeral Home, 867 5th Ave, Coraopolis PA on Friday, September 1, 2023, from 12 Noon until time of service at 2 PM. We invite guests in attendance to share their reflections in celebration of Charles’ life at his service which will be held during the last 30 minutes of the visitation. He will be interred after at Coraopolis Cemetery next to his dearly beloved mother, Margaret Wickenhiser Cooper. Donations may be made in the name of Charles David Cooper to The Myasthenia Gravis Association of Western PA (http://mgawpa.org/) or the Girl Scouts(https://www.girlscouts.org/).

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