Cookie Joe

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Prelude

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

About the Author

Cookie Joe

D.H. Coop

Copyright © 2023 D.H. Coop

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2023

ISBN 979-8-88731-548-5 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88731-549-2 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Prelude

Summer was coming, and the young students were restless to have no school for the summer break in a few weeks. The day was hot, inside the classroom and outside in the playground. The day was almost at the end, and the class was restless and starting to get fidgety. To get the children engaged, Mrs. Miller addressed her fifth-grade class.

All right, class. Memorial Day is next week, and there are some soldiers recovering at the local hospital here in town. I think it would be nice to thank them for their service with some get-well cards. So if you feel like writing a thank-you card to a soldier, I will see that the hospital gets them. I will be writing one myself. So give it some thought, and I'll see you tomorrow.

The bell rang, ending the school day, and the class sat up straight after cleaning around their desks. They sat there and waited for the word dismissed.

You are dismissed, class, said Mrs. Miller as she smiled at the students.

Goodbye, Mrs. Miller! yelled the students as they rushed out the door.

*****

Later that evening, Hannah told her mother about the letter-writing option. I would like to send a letter to a soldier at the hospital as our teacher asked if we wanted to write one. Mrs. Miller said she is writing one herself, and she will take our cards when she goes to the hospital.

I am very happy you want to do such a nice thing.

Do you think the soldier who gets my get-well card would like some cookies since he is alone without his family at the hospital?

I think you might be right. I know I would like some cookies if I were alone in a strange hospital.

Good. I will make my favorite peanut butter cookies.

Hannah, some people are allergic to peanuts. We would not want to send someone cookies that they could not eat or make them very sick. Would we?

"Oh no! I would not want to do that. Then we can make sugar cookies. I like them almost as much."

Good! Then let's go and make your cookies so you can take them to school tomorrow with the thank-you card for the soldier.

Do we have all the things we need, Mom?

I think so. We can use my mother's recipe. I loved her sugar cookies and have not made them for years.

Why have you not made them if you loved them?

I guess because you loved peanut butter cookies. Anyway I remember they were the best sugar cookies with creamed butter, granulated sugar, vanilla extract, all-purpose flour, baking powder, eggs, a pinch of sea salt, and just a little of cream of tartar. She sometimes added a small amount of almond extract, but we will stay away from the use of any nuts for our cookies. Now you help me gather all these ingredients and bowls, while I set the oven temperature to 350 degrees.

What about the icing? We have to put icing on the cookies.

Oh yes! My mother made the best icing. She used Swiss meringue instead of the Italian or French meringue. She would mix in the confectioners' sugar in with the vanilla extract, water, salt, and small amount of corn syrup that made the cookies taste so much better. So you and I will make the best cookies anyone has had for your soldier, Hannah.

This is the best time, Mom!

Hannah and her mother made three dozen cookies and put them in a tin box with a letter that was taped to the top of the tin. The next day, Hannah gave the tin of cookies to her teacher at school.

Mrs. Miller, my mother and I decided to make some sugar cookies for the soldier that my letter will go to, if that is okay.

That is very nice of you, Hannah. I am sure it will be appreciated.

I hope so. I was going to make peanut butter cookies because they are my favorite, but my mom told me that some people cannot eat peanuts and would get very sick. So we made sugar cookies. My second favorite.

That was very thoughtful of you and your mother, Hannah. May I read your letter?

Oh yes, said Hannah as she handed a copy to Mrs. Miller.

Dear Soldier,

Our teacher asked us to write a letter to veterans in the hospital as a fifth grade assignment to thank you for protecting our country. After I started writing, I thought about you not being with your family. So I made you some cookies. My mother said you might have an allergy, so I should not make my favorite peanut butter cookies. I hope you like sugar cookies and get well soon.

Be safe,

Hannah B

Hannah, this is a very nice letter, and the gift of cookies is a wonderful idea. I think next year I will suggest it to the class. Thank you for the idea.

A few weeks later, the students received individual letters written by the soldiers at the hospital.

Dear Hannah,

It was a cloudy day until the nurse gave me your letter. It made the day bright and happy! Hannah thank you for the cookies and sugar cookies are my favorite. Tell your mother that I do have a peanut allergy, and she was so thoughtful. I shared the cookies with my hospital mates, and they also said thank you. They were just what the doctor ordered. You made my day, and I'll always remember your thoughtfulness and pay it forward.

Your soldier friend,

Joe

Mrs. Miller took the letters and Hannah's cookies to the hospital. A soldier name Joe received Hannah's letter and cookies, and they changed his life. Joe was having a very difficult time dealing with his injuries until he received Hannah's letter and cookies. Almost immediately, Joe began looking to the future and doing his therapy with a positive attitude. He even helped other men in the ward with their therapy. The nurses were amazed at how Joe's attitude changed and how he had a positive effect on the other men. The floor became a happy area, with joking and laughter of the patients and staff. Then one day a doctor asked what caused the change in the mood of the floor.

It started when the teacher delivered some letters from a local school, said the nurse.

Well, whatever it was I would package it, said the doctor.

Joe was released from the hospital six months later and married his high school sweetheart, Beth, the following year. He told her the story of the cookies he had received in the hospital and how they had changed his attitude and that he wanted to help other individuals in the same situation. The next morning, they agreed on a plan for them to pay it forward. They also agreed to include first responders and not just military personnel.

The following month, Joe and his wife started making sugar cookies and packaged them to send to injured police officers, firemen, and solders in hospitals in their city and the surrounding cities. Placed in each package was a copy of the original letter that Hannah had sent to Joe, along with a note from Joe telling his story of the first cookie package and how it turned his life around.

Joseph Edwin Grant and Beth Marie Grant had one child they named Joseph Edwin Grant Jr. It was not long after the birth of Joseph Junior that Beth became sick, and they could not have any more children. The young Joseph grew up and had two children, Madison Marie Grant and Edwin Joseph Grant. Edwin was named in honor of his grandfather, with the name in reverse order.

Edwin became very close to his grandfather and spent the last years of his grandparents' life living in the same house, taking care of them. Beth had been sick for a number of years and was getting weaker when Edwin decided to move in to help with the care of his grandmother.

Edwin would sit in their room at night, and they would watch the Music Man every Friday night and sing along with the film. Beth had a beautiful voice, and she would sing along with Shirley Jones. Joe would sing along with Robert Preston and Buddy Hackett in a terrible voice. They insisted that Edwin sing the parts with Ron Howard and laugh at his attempt to mimic the voice. They had been calling him Edwin because three Joes was just too much.

Over time, the cookie-package deliveries declined, especially in the last few years. But Joe and Beth still managed to send those that they could. After Edwin had moved in with his grandparents, he came home early one day and found them both in the kitchen. Joe was moving around the room, getting whatever Beth needed as she sat at the kitchen table, mixing the dough. On seeing Edwin walk in, Joe and Beth looked at each other and then asked Edwin to sit down.

They told him of the cookie packages that they had been sending and why they were sent. They made him promise not to tell anyone about the cookies. It was then that Edwin began helping Joe with the cookies.

Beth passed on, and Joe sat Edwin down and told him the whole story of how he got his injuries and how the cookies and Hannah's letter changed his life. Joe asked Edwin to continue the packages, and Edwin could see how this was important to his grandfather and promised to continue the cookies.

Chapter 1

Joseph Edwin Grant died on December 1 and was buried a week later. The grave-side service was in a light rain with an honor guard, a small group of family members, and a large number of friends in attendance. Many individuals wanted to say something about Joe and how he helped them. Two old friends from the service days told the story of how Joe had helped them when they returned from the war and were in the hospital together. Others who stood were police and firefighters that told how Joe and his wife helped them through their own difficult times in the hospitals. In all the speeches, there was no mention of the cookies. Later at the house after the mourners left, Edwin and his sister sat in the front room together.

Edwin, that was a wonderful service for Grandfather, and you followed his wishes to the letter. I cried the whole time. I was afraid my tears would freeze in the December cold. He was such a caring man even after what he endured in his lifetime, said Edwin's sister, Madison.

Yes, he was. Did you know he and Grandmother over the years were sending cookies to injured men and women at local hospitals? All those people who stood up and talked about how much it helped them when they received a tin of cookies, and they did not know who sent them, said Edwin.

How do you know that? They never mentioned anything about cookies in the talks they gave!

Many of those people had come by the house and visited with our grandparents when I started staying there. Plus, I did not think any of them knew the cookies came from our grandparents, and now I am sure of it for they did not mention the cookies.

Then how did they know Joe and Beth? asked Madison.

Joe told me that after he sent the cookies, he began to stop by the hospitals and visit the patients, and many friendships developed. Joe played an important part in finding jobs for many of the men and women when they were released from the hospital. Some of them could not return to their previous work, and Joe would help.

That sounds like Joe and Beth, but how do you know about these cookies you say they sent? asked Madison.

"I helped them with the cookies, but not to the extent of what he and Grandmother had been doing. I only started to help him just before grandmother died. She was amazing. One night I came home early and saw the two of them mixing the cookie dough. She had Joe get her out of bed so she could the mix the dough at the kitchen table. It was the first time I saw her smile that bright in a long time. I think they both knew it would be the last time to share that act of kindness.

They had kept complete records over the years of each box of cookies they had sent to whom and where. I found the records when I went through his files. Over the years they had delivered several hundred of boxes of cookies to seventeen different hospitals to injured police, fire, and military-service personnel. They did all this annonymously. The also kept in the files the newspaper clippings of the injured officers for each box of cookies they had delivered. Our grandparents had been doing this since a little after he returned from Vietnam and was released from the hospital. They had been married a short time before they started sending the cookies.

"Which hospital? He was in a number of hospitals if I remember correctly. The VA hospital back east or the local hospital here in town? The VA system back then was a mess with all the injured patients returning from the war. The VA hospitals were in poor condition, and the VA health-care system back then was overworked, unsupported, and understaffed.

As thousands of injured individuals went through the medical system, the government failed to keep up the funding for the health-care system with so many injured returning vets. The funding was less than in the past wars. The health care during World War II, the military had over forty thousand nurses to care for wounded veterans. Then during the Vietnam War, there were only some five thousand nurses to care for the wounded, and many nurses were civilians because they could not fill the ranks of the military. This was when the survival rate for wounds was greater than during World War II. Then at times these contracted civilians were opposed to the war. At times their resentment filtered into the health care, Madison said.

He was sent to the VA hospital out here and was still not improving. Then his mother and father had the help of a local congressman to get him transferred to the local hospital here for his recovery. He was in pretty bad shape. They hoped that if he was closer to home, he would start to improve. That was not happening, and then one day he was given a get-well card with a note inside from a little girl with a tin box of sugar cookies, and he started to improve. Anyway, that is what dad told me one night when Grandmother's condition became worse, and I decided to move in and help them, Edwin explained.

I did not know all this. I wish I had asked more question about his life, said Madison.

Most likely it would not have helped. He did not talk about his early life, and Dad only mentioned it that one time when he and his buddies were drinking in the backyard going down memory lane one night about their fathers. Although we both have overheard stories from time to time, usually when we were supposed to be in bed, that is when we learned a lot of family history. Those were fun times listing to the adults talking around the kitchen table about the past.

Well, what are you going to do now that the funeral is over? asked Madison.

"Well, when I went to live with Grandfather Joe to help him with Grandmother, he talked to me a lot. He asked if I would continue his work. I promised him I would continue his cookie deliveries. Then he got sick and asked me to fill in while he was laid up in bed. I agreed to do it until he recovered. Then when the doctors told him he had less than a year left, he asked me again and made me promise I would continue the work. I could see that it was very important to him and said yes. Then he made me promise