tinction. She is the author of an interesting volume of poems, and wherever known is recognized as a woman of culture and high social attainments. Her home at the present time (1902) is in San Francisco, California.
Mrs. Frances Fuller Victor, who was her close friend and who had spent a good deal of time at her home in Salem, likewise gave her only brief mention in Bancroft's History of Oregon:
Mrs. Belle W. Cooke of Salem wrote some graceful poems, and published a small volume under the title of Tears and Victory. Mrs. Cooke was mother of one of Ore- gon's native artists, Clyde Cook, who studied in Europe, and inherited his talent from her.
Mrs. Cooke's maiden name was Belle Walker-in full, Susan Isabella Walker. She was born in 1834 and so was 37 when her book was published. As a baby she permanently lost her sense of smell from scarlet fever. Her father contracted the disease from her and died. Her mother was a teacher for several years in Indiana and Kentucky until she married again.
She was 17 when she arrived in Oregon in the fall of 1851, crossing the plains with her Baptist uncle, Reverend George C. Chandler, who founded and be- came the first president of McMinnville College, now Linfield College. During her first winter in Oregon she taught at the Oregon Institute in Salem, and the following summer was married to Joseph Cooke. The wedding was held at the Portland home of Samuel A. Clarke, later author of Pioneer Days of Oregon History and Sounds by the Western Sea and Other Poems; and the minister was Reverend Horace Lyman.
They settled on a donation claim near Jackson Hill,
