Marianne Cooper

COOPER - Marianne V. 1938-2020. Always a fighter to help others, Marianne Cooper ultimately succumbed to COVID-19 one day after her 82nd birthday. She was born in Budapest, Hungary, to Laszlo and Elizabet Abonyi. Among her earliest memories were watching Jews lined up and shot into the Danube River, and trying to not cry from hunger while hiding with her family from the Nazis. She and her family then endured the brutal 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary. With help from the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS,) she and her mother ultimately escaped to the United States and settled in Syracuse, where she graduated Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Syracuse University, and they both became naturalized U.S. citizens. These events help explain Marianne's compulsion to help others trying to make it a better world.Marianne and her mother then moved to New York City, where she earned a Masters and later a Doctorate in Library Science from Columbia University. She also met the love of her life, graduate chemical engineering student Herbert Cooper. They married in 1961 and had 59 magical years together. In 1969, they and their two young daughters, Deborah and Evelyn, moved to Long Island where Marianne became a suburban Superwoman. She and Herbert raised their daughters jointly while she completed her doctoral dissertation, taught full-time at the Queens College Graduate School of Library and Information Studies, participated in local civic organizations, and consulted for several companies. She spent 36 mutually rewarding years at Queens College, most of them as an active teaching Associate Professor, and as a highly regarded innovative Department Chair during the challenging times for libraries and librarians caused by major advances in information technology. Later she served as the College's Affirmative Action Officer, successfully changing its focus to attracting a variety of candidates rather than setting specific quotas. Marianne retired in 2011. She and Herbert were then able to spend more time with their children, grandchildren, and many others. Condolence messages now show that she is already being missed enormously by those she had interacted with and had helped at crucial times and in ways that were important. She was and remains a remarkable role model. Donations in her memory may be made to HIAS, which has formally expanded its mission to protect and assist refugees of all faiths and ethnicities, and/or to another organization of your choice.