Joseph Wright Cook

Joseph Wright Cook¹

• Birth*: 7 March 1883; Pottstown, Montgomery Co., Pennsylvania^1,2
• Marriage*: 23 August 1915; Hamadan, Persia; Spouse:Alice Orra Ensign
• Death*: 8 January 1932; Hamadan, Persia³

Parents:

Notes

• Note*: Obituary, Pottstown News, 13 Jan 1932
  
  Pottstown native, a Medical Missionary, Died of Typhus Fever in Hospital at Hamadan, Persia
  
  Was Aged 49 Years
  
  Deceased Graduate of The Hill, Princton and U. of P. - held major's Commission in Medical Corps During the World War
  
  Dr. Joseph Cook, whose death was announced in Monday’s issue of the News, died last Friday at Hamadan, Persia, where he was in charge of the American Hospital conducted by the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church. He was aged 49 years. Death was due to typhus fever. Dr. Cook had been stationed at the Hamadan Hospital since Summer of 1929 when he and his family went there from Banning, California. He is survived by his widow, Alice (nee Ensign) Cook, and four children; Frederick, Edgar, Josephine and Alice, all of whom are now at Hamadan.
  
  Dr. Cook was a son of Josephine B. (nee Shoemaker)
  He was a graduate of The Hill School, Princton University and f the University of Pennsylvania Medical College. About 1912, Dr. Cook went to Persia as a medical missionary and did wonderful work there in a country where there are very few doctors. he was in Persia for several years and returned to the United States during the World War. He was a Major in the Medical Corps of the United States Army during this country's participation in the war. After the armistice Dr. and Mrs. Cook became residents of Banning, California where he engaged in the practice of medicine. In the Summer of 1929 Dr. Cook and family returned to Persia. They went via airplane from Paris, France, to Beirut.
  
  Relatives here have not been informed whether the body will be sent to the United States for interment. Dr. Cook's father is interred in Edgewood Cemetery.³
• Note: Snippets from daughter Josephine's account of his life in her "Women of Faith" manuscript:
  
  Father arrived in Iran in 1912 and was stationed in Tehran at the Mission Hospital.
  
  Father had been reassigned to Meshed on the border of Afghanistan to open a hospital in the shade of the great Islam Mosque.
  
  After 6 months in Meshed, the birth of a son in June of 1916, they were called to return to Tehran. World War I was threatening and father's father was ill in California. They decided to take a 6 month furlough and hope to get to California in time to see his father. So in January of 1917 they left Tehran in a snowstorm. ... Father's father had sacrificed a great deal to help him become a missionary so he felt he must try to reach him.
  
  [Follows an account of the family's journey to Petrograd and thence to Vladivostok on the Trans-Siberian railroad, then to Japan and California.]
  
  And so they returned to the U.S.A. and proceeded to Redlands, California where three more children were born - all told two boys and two girls. Father enlisted in the army in 1917 and was commissioned to return to Persia with the Hoover Commission - to aid the Armenians who were being annihilated by the Turks. On his trip across the Pacific through China and then India he broke down with Tuberculosis. After several months in Dr. Wanless' hospital in India, he was able to return to California and recover.
  
  He set up his practice in Banning, California and specialized in the treatment of Tuberculosis. I those days the sun was considered the best treatment. His own recovery was complete and in 19129 was given permission to return to the land he loved, Persia, now Iran. He said "If I only have one year to live I would rather live it in Persia where I can help so many, who otherwise would never see a doctor."
  
  And so they returned to Persia, to Hamadan...
  
  Father was immediately busy at work and soon opened two dispensaries, one in the very poorest section and the other in the better side of the city.
  
  In 1931 we took a trip through Kurdistan...
  
  On our return to Hamadan, Father's reports told of his treating 21,376 patients in the past year, many cataracts. In one week he treated 2,936 cases. he wrote "I cannot tell you how happy I am, seldom a day passes but I thank God I was permitted to return and was granted this privilege."
  
  And so when all seemed perfect, he was bitten by a louse and contracted typhus fever, deadly because he had had tuberculosis. He did not survive the crisis and died in January of 1932.⁴