6 minute read
from Aeolian 2023
By Rebekah McLeod
At age 102, Ann Pittman Cook was the oldest living alum at the time of this interview in September 2022, when we had the privilege of sitting down with her in her home in Cordele, Ga., to ask her about her life, her family and her time as an award-winning athlete in college. Mrs. Cook graduated from Georgia Southwestern College in 1939. She and her husband, Kenneth, had two sons, five grandchildren and nine great grandchildren, with a total of nine family members over three generations who either graduated from or are currently enrolled at GSW. Sadly, Mrs. Cook affectionately known as Mema to her family passed away on May 31, 2023 prior to the Aeolian’s release. Her legacy of faith, kindness and dedication to family will continue to impact all those who knew and loved her.
“Ann Cook made the world a better place and had fun doing it,” said Lee Guerry, Mrs. Cook’s friend and the former associate pastor at Cordele First United Methodist Church, in a letter read at her funeral. Ann was a devoted, lifelong member of the Methodist Church, and it was where she first met her husband, Kenneth, whose father was the pastor at First United Methodist in Americus, Ga. Ann and Kenneth met at the church’s youth program when Ann was 17, but they did not begin dating until after Ann finished college in 1939.
While at GSW, Ann played on the All-Star Speedball team during her freshman year (1937-38) and the All-Star Basketball team during her sophomore year (1938-39). When asked about her years as an athlete, Ann said, “Those were my serious years…I won the high jump! There’s a picture in my album of me running the hundred yard dash…”
Kenneth attended GSW for a short time in 1942 until he joined the military. Ann recounted the story with her natural exuberance and an uncanny memory for details at age 102:
"We married in 1941; Ken [Jr.] was born in 1943. The draft board in Americus told Kenneth they would not draft him until Ken was born. About a month before he knew he would be drafted, Kenneth enlisted in the Navy. He left when Ken was about three months old and served on a [patrol torpedo] boat in the South Pacific. We didn’t see him again until the end of the war in 1947. I wrote to him every day. There's a picture of me and Kenneth walking down the street in Atlanta; I couldn’t drive, so my brother, Dale, took me to Atlanta to meet Kenneth after he was released from the Navy."
Ann and Kenneth had two sons, Kenneth, Jr. ʼ63 and Joe ʼ69, both of whom became GSW alumni and successful businessmen. Kenneth, Jr. worked in sales for Metropolitan Life Insurance in Albany, Ga., and Joe became CEO and owner of the business his father started, Cook Industrial Electric Company. Ann tells the story of how she and Kenneth moved to Cordele in 1963 with little money and the hope of building a business:
"I was ready to go until the actual move date came. Joe was 17 at the time and he was very shy; I was shy back then too, if you can believe it! [laughter] Kenneth asked me to give him a year in Cordele, and if we didn’t adjust he would move us back to Americus. But in that year, Cordele became home. We redid that building, which had been a cotton warehouse. I had never worked before, but I did work for ten years helping Kenneth get established. He worked real hard; he wanted to amount to something, and he made a success of that business. But then when his health was bad, he turned the business over to Joe, and Joe has done a wonderful job."
Joe and his wife, Diane, have two children. Kenneth, Jr. and his wife, Rachael — a 1967 GSW graduate — have three children, Cary, Rebecca, and Kenneth “Ross,” who carried on both his mother and grandmother’s legacy and graduated from GSW in 2001.
Ann’s grandson, Cary, and his wife, Julie, have four children, three of whom have attended or are currently attending GSW as well: Ellie ’19 who inherited her great-grandmother’s athletic ability and played softball while at GSW; Hannah ’23 who, as a member of the President Jimmy Carter Leadership Program, was involved on campus like her great-grandmother; and John, a pre-accounting major with a wicked sense of humor, just like Ann. David, their fourth son, has plans to take over the family electrical business in Cordele.
As grandson Cary noted in her eulogy, Ann was funny, loving, kind, meticulous, intelligent and witty. “She lived her life with a smile, a quick wit and a listening ear.”
“Mema was really proud of her time at GSW. She fondly remembered her time at Southwestern and, the week before she passed, talked about playing basketball, the high jump record she set, [breaking] her own record,” Cary recalled.
“You know,” Ann told Cary, “I had really long legs.”
In the 84 years since Ann was a student, Georgia Southwestern has undergone dramatic growth. On this, Ann can attest: “The campus is entirely different now. It was just the main building and a gym when I was there. I lived on Hancock Drive, and we all walked to GSW every day. We walked back home at noontime and then back after dinner — we called lunch 'dinner' back then — and thought nothing of it.”
Times have certainly changed, but the values that Ann held dear—friendship, laughter and family—continue to resonate with those who have benefited from knowing her. She couldn’t contain her pride when reminiscing on the role GSW has played in so much of her family’s life: “Georgia Southwestern is a first-class college. You’re proud to say you’re a part of it.”
