Lorraine Cook

A brief history as told by Debbie Stewart.

Lorraine was born in Oakland Ca on May 15, 1920. Her parents were Fred and Flora Spicer, who had met while performing in Vaudeville in San Francisco.

Lorraine had three sisters, Emma, Ruth and Marian and a brother Leonard.

The Spicer family had a very happy and stable life growing up in East Oakland during the Twenties and the Thirties.

Lorraine's dad was a charismatic and fun man that worked as a travelling salesman and millman in the lumber business. Her mom was a housewife and a strong, no-nonsense, good humored woman.

The Spicer family had many friends and fun parties with dancing in the living room to the payer piano. As mom tells it, when she was 5 years old the adults would come to her room, wake her and say, "Hey Rainey if you wake up, we'll let you pump the player piano". Which was a great treat for her as well as allowing the adults to dance away the night.

Her parents best friends during this time were Bob and Erlene Cook. As the story goes, they were such good friends that each couple stood up for each other at their weddings. Bob and Erlene had 3 children. Jean, Muriel and Clair. The Spicer and Cook kids thought of each more as cousins than friends while growing up. Lorraine ended up marrying Clair later in life!

Childhood memories included camping often on the weekends, trips to Lake Tahoe where they all insisted that their dad invented PeeWee Golf in Brockway one summer.

Lorraine attended Havenscourt Tabernacle for Sunday School as a child.

When she was 16 her parents divorced and her dad moved to Placerville to manage the Sterling Lumber Company at the current site of the Buttercup Pantry. She and her sister Marian moved up to live with her dad and new wife Florence and attended El Dorado High School. She told stories of going to dances on Saturday nights at Motor City in Placerville and dancing to the live bands playing the big band sounds of the day. She loved to tell about how everyone dressed up and danced in a circle around the room and then they would break for "dinner" at midnight, pile into cars and go downtown to eat and then go back to finish dancing til 2 AM.

When she was 17 the girls moved back to Oakland to live with her mom. Lorraine worked at that time for a wealthy family in Piedmont and loved learning to create and present gourmet meals for them.

Next she worked as a telephone operator in downtown Oakland and this is where she was when the war broke out. She told stories of the blackouts that would occur nightly in the bay area and during these blackouts they had to move about in the dark but this didn't prevent them from constantly gathering the group together - piling in cars to go on a drive or sitting around the dining table at their mom's to laugh and sing all the war time "crooner" songs they all loved so much. This was the Greatest Generation as they are called, and where the saying, "I'll cry tomorrow" came from. They put on a happy face, kept their chins up and worked together to stay strong as individuals and for our country. They lived that way all of their lives.

During the war Lorraine and her sister Marian worked in the Bethlehem Shipyards in Alameda as hull inspectors as "Rosy the Rivetor" type gals. Their first jobs there were as "Fire Guards" and they would tell of how they were the only girls around the workers and how the guys would light their milk cartons on fire and yell, "Fire! Fire!" so that her and Marian would come to put out the fire and the guys could see and talk to them! They were always so cute and such classy, fun ladies. And were loved and respected by all who knew them through life.

Their beloved father passed away when Lorraine was 21 and they all took his passing very hard.

After the war, everyone started settling down and haiving babies and this was the beginning of the Baby Boomer Generation. Lorraine's son and pride and joy, Bob Schaefer came in to the world in 1947 she was seperated from his father when Bob was a baby and raised him as a single mother for 13 years.

Of course there was the family and they all stayed very close and had tons of fun raising their families together with their mom and all Lorraine's sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews. Her sister Emma and husband Dick had Mardie and Dickey, her sister Ruth and husband Don had Carol Ann and Donny, her brother Leonard and wife Dorothy had Buddy Kathleen and Susie, and her sister Marian and husband Denny had Denny and Judy. All these nieces and nephews produced more generations of family and she was a big part of all their lives as well. There are so many fun stories told of all their escapades over the years

Lorraine worked at the Dodge Plant in San Leandro and later in San Mateo were she was secretary to the general manager and all the foremen. She loved and took great pride in her work.

When Bob was 13 Lorraine fell in love with her childhood friend Clair Cook and they married on Feb, 11, 1961 at the ages of 40 and 41! Clair had two children from his first marriage, Judy and Pat. Debbie was born on October 3rd and now Lorraine was a mother of two of her own and two step kids! During Debbie's infancy Lorraine's mother passed away and this was a great loss to all the family. Bob was a great kid and teen, involved in school, drama, singing, swim team,and attending church at Fairhaven Bible Chapel. His strong, responsible and dedicated character, and his patriotism, led him to volunteer for the Marine Corps in 1965 before he turned 18 and headed to Vietnam to ”defend his country and especially protect her and Debbie”, as Lorraine told the story. He was a brave and noble young man and she put on a brave mom persona, but this was very hard on her for him to be at war. She used to bake and send boxes of cookies to Bob and he would share them with the guys and they all loved that so much. There were always letters back and forth by "airmail" as mom and son kept close during that difficult time. She was very proud of Bob all the days of her life.

After that war Lorraine's life took on the routine of home and family as she and Clair raised Debbie on Mitchell Avenue in San Leandro. There were so many friends in the neighborhood and so many wonderful idyllic memories for all of us of school days, family gatherings and camping trips. Debbie was sent to Fair Haven Bible Chapel for Sunday school where Bob had also gone and also to the same church camp he went to as a teenager. All the sisters and brothers and nieces and nephews would gather for every holiday and birthdays and have so many stories of Aunt Nainey and all the clan. They all lived near each other in the Bay Area. Lorraine was thought of as a second mom to Debbie's best friend Debra Schmidt and was very close to so many of her other friends during her growing up years. When Debbie was in Junior high school, Lorraine went to work for the State of California and became a legal secretary. She loved working with the legal professionals at the State Workers' Compensation Appeals Board in Oakland and then later for the State of California in Sacramento. She worked until the age of 85 and was an excellent professional who valued her work and had a strong work ethic.

Bob moved home during college and then married Kathi in 1981 and they soon had their the first grandson and pride and joy Matthew. Lorraine loved being a big part of his life and going to his Little League games and events. They lived in Castro Valley. And then after Matt grew up, he moved to Santa Barbara for college and lives there still with his girlfriend Monica.

Lorraine, Clair and Debbie lived in Hayward during Debbie's college and young adult years. During that time she married and two more grandchildren were born, Kirsten and then 18 months later Sarah. Lorraine and Clair had become very busy and involved grandparents.

In December of 1989 Clair and Lorraine moved to Placerville, and Debbie and family moved to Pollock Pines in January of 1990. Jacob was born in 1991 and added to the gang at the Thompson house. Lorraine was a very involved grandma taking care of kids over their lives, especially after Debbie became a single parent in 1994. She was at all the kids games, dance productions, scouts, 4H, church and school activities. So a whole new generation of parents and kids knew Gram well and loved her!

In 1998 Lorraine lost her beloved husband Clair. The way she handled his loss was a model of her strength, resolve and positive hopeful attitude that she always chose to have.

Another very significant thing happened in 1998, and that was discovering that Clair had had another daughter, Kathie, who had been adopted out at birth and he had never known about her. She was searching for her birth family and found us through Clair’s obituary. She became very close to Lorraine and the rest of our family.

Along with Kathie, Lorraine was blessed two more granddaughters, Katie and Anna, and two more great grandchildren followed, Noah and Sofia.

She became involved in church at first Lutheran Church in Placerville in the early 90s and then Lighthouse Missionary Baptist Church in 1998, the year in which she was saved and baptized at 75 years old. She had many wonderful times involved in church life and women's ministry events and made so many more close friends of all ages. She really loved getting to know Jesus as Savior and cherished learning the Bible and signing and fellowshipping over about the last 30 years of her life.

Before Clair died they had moved to Pollock Pines, and Lorraine stayed there until after her first great grandchild Anella was born in 2005. She was blessed to have her family grow as Kirsten and Sarah married. She loved her two grandson-in-loves, Jake and PC, as her own and loved their families as her own, too. She had five great grandchildren from 2005 to 2015, Anella, Gabriella, James, Calyse and Vivian who she was very close to and cherished. In addition to these grand kids, her step kids Pat and Judy also had precious children and grandchildren.

By Debbie marrying her high school first love Chuck in January 2015, she also gained a wonderful son-in-love and a large extended family on his side with three more grown kids, Daniel, Adam and Ally and with two additional darling great grand kids Sofya and Layla. She also in the last two years got to know and love Jacob's girlfriend Mandi.

In 2005 Lorraine moved to Placerville where she lived in her apartment and made three great friends that she would hang out with when not with the family. She loved her ten years there, and it was her home that she last remembered. She lived in her apartment until May 2015 when she moved in with Deb and Chuck, then to Apple Country Care Home in Camino where she resided until the time of her peaceful and graceful passing on January 13th, 2017, at 10:57 p.m. of old age.

She left anyone who knew her with a legacy of love, kindness, humor, caring for family and friends ,intelligence and a strong sense of right and wrong. She was a great listener and gave wise advice when sought out for it, which was often. She loved to have fun and be with family, loved the outdoors and home. Never have I known someone who always had a good attitude, looked pretty, smelled fresh and beautiful, treated others with grace and gave of herself to others and while being sensitive and tender, she was a person with such quiet strength.

Her favorite color was blue like her eyes. She loved the big bands, especially Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller, and the crooners, especially Bing Crosby. Her favorite book of the Bible was James, and she loved to go to church, sing and listen to the sermon. Her favorite saying was, "Stand up to be seen, speak up to be heard, and shut up to be appreciated." She lived by this.

So many have been touched by her legacy and will carry it on to future generations. All of you family and friends who read this are wonderful people that she knew and loved. You each have your story with her, and I wish I could talk about each and every one of you and her life and times with you because you each were important to her and she thought so much of you all. You know what you shared with her! Nothing can ever take that away. I want to thank every one of you. I thank God for you and all the parts you played in her life. Our wish is that you now enjoy yourselves in your lives, remember her legacy and give a toast and a prayer of thanksgiving for her life.

Love you all, Debbie.