Wanda Maedgen Cook

Wanda Elizabeth Maedgen Cook, 93, of Waco died Dec. 30, 2002. Services will be at 1:30 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 4 at Wilkirson-Hatch-Bailey Chapel, 1124 Washington Ave. with the Rev. Art Torpy officiating. Visitation with the family will be from 6 to 8 p.m., Friday, Jan. 3 at the funeral home. Mrs. Cook was born July 21, 1909, in Troy, Texas, to Paul Samuel and Nancy Elizabeth Green Maedgen, the youngest of six children. When she was quite young, the family moved to Brownwood where her father was associated with Waco Drug Company Later Southwestern Drug Corp.. There she graduated from Howard Payne Academy and attended Howard Payne College for two years before departing for Kansas City, Mo., to study for two years at Kansas City Art Institute. Upon her return to Texas at the height of the Great Depression, she and a group of friends which included Glenn Martin, an aspiring actor later to become the father of Hollywood actor/comedian Steve Martin occupied their time by mounting dramatic productions for Waco audiences. She designed and painted the stage sets, serving as artistic director for both the Dramateur Guild and Waco Little Theatre. Mrs. Cook was a descendent of Edward Jackson of South Carolina, her maternal great- great-great-grandfather, who served in Col. Lemuel Benson’s South Carolina regiment in the American Revolution. She was a member of the Elizabeth Gordon Bradley Chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution, where she served as secretary and flag chairman. She was also descended from a pioneer Texas family, her paternal great-grandfather, Franz Josef Maegden, having arrived in Galveston, then Republic of Texas, by sailing ship from Germany, accompanied by his family and household. Years later, his son, her grandfather, Franz Joseph Moritz Maedgen, fought for five years with the Confederate Fourth Texas Cavalry under Major John Sibley in battles from Val Verde, N.M., through Texas and Arkansas to Mansfield, La. The young German-born Texas received a battlefield commission when his commanding officer was killed early in the campaign. At the end of the Civil War, he settled in Bell County and represented that area in the Texas Legislature for a number of years. Mrs. Cook was active in the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. In 1939, in Dallas she married Charles DeVere Cook, then president of Texas Building Materials Company, and devoted herself to rearing a family. When he preceded her in death in 1958 she continued to operate the company for many years. When she closed the business in 1963, she immersed herself in church, community and cultural organizations in Waco. Until fragile health curtailed her activities 35 years later, she was an active member of Austin Avenue United Methodist Church, Hartsfield Class, Waco Symphony Women’s Council, the Art Center Associates, the Waco Art League, Community Artists and Students Association, the Waco Federation of Women’s Clubs, Pan American Roundtable, Historic Waco Foundation, several study and garden clubs, and Ridgewood Women’s Golf Association. She had served as a board director for the Evangelia Settlement, and as present of the Waco Council of Garden Clubs, oversaw the rededication of the Waco Garden Center as the Nell Pape Garden Center. She lived a quietly adventurous life, her experiences including loving to ride horseback in the wide open spaces of West Texas, going up for rides in open cockpit planes during the 1920s, once riding in a barrel race in a rodeo in Coleman, Texas, attending a wedding reception airborne in a DC3 over Kansas City, attending the inaugural ball for “Ma” Ferguson, Texas’s only woman governor, running a business that was unexpectedly thrust upon her, sailing to Europe on the last voyage of the Queen Mary, returning to Europe in her mid seventies to show the sights to her 84-year old sister, and simply reveling in her grandchildren. She loved people and life, giving tirelessly of her time and help to family and friends. Above all, she cherished her children and their spouses, her grandchildren, all her extended family, her loving friends who kept in touch to the end, and her loving friends who kept in touch to the end, and her wonderful circle of friends, new and old, at Stilwell Memorial Retirement Residence. Survivors include a son, Charles DeVere Cook and wife Ann of Waco; daughter, Patricia Cook Rauls and husband Joseph of New Orleans; granddaughters, Sarah and Caroline Rauls, also of New Orleans; and a host of nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews. In lieu of flowers her family requests that for those who desire to do so, memorials may be made to Austin Avenue Methodist Church, Stilwell Memorial Retirement Residence or a charity of one’s choice. Memorial guestbook at www.wilkirsonhatchbailey.com.