LITTLE DEER ISLE – Sarah Wedgwood Cooper, born Sarah Margaret Wedgwood, was born April 27, 1937, at the Northern Westchester County Hospital, Mount Kisco, N.Y. She died Friday, Aug. 30, 2013, at Blue Hill Hospital quickly and comfortably after a long bout with cancer; her husband and dear friend at her bedside.
She was the eldest daughter of Rebecca Eaton Wedgwood and Hensleigh Cecil Wedgwood. Her childhood was spent in Mount Kisco and Chappaqua. Sally attended Horace Greeley High School and graduated from Oakwood Friends School in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., then went on to the College of Wooster in Ohio, majoring in geology. She worked at the Cleveland Plain Dealer and later the Cleveland Drug Company until she married Martin White Rossney of Glen Ridge, N.J.
Martin and Sally relocated to Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, in 1970 where they raised their two sons, and she embarked on a real estate career. After her divorce from Martin, she met the love of her life, Lou Cooper, and they married in a cliffside ceremony, under the second eucalyptus tree from The Point in the Palisades. After working as “house parents” in several group homes for teenage offenders in the barrios of Los Angeles, Lou and Sal moved to Maine to her family’s summer home in Sargentville where she had spent almost every summer of her life, and later became inn keepers at the Red House on Little Deer Isle where they lived.
She was an avid gardener, especially of flowers, an enthusiastic bridge player, a strong tennis player, a devoted cellist, sang in the Bagaduce Chorale for many years, volunteered at the Bagaduce Music Lending Library, appeared in numerous community musical theatre productions, was also a member of the board of the Blue Hill Co-op and was the longtime secretary and recent honorary trustee of the Sedgwick-Brooklin Historical Society, a life-long member of the Sargentville Thursday Club and a member of the Rosebuddy Club also of Sargentville.
Sal will be remembered for many things but mainly for her amazing spirit and positivity, her friendliness, creativity and willingness to help everyone, her strength and her razor-sharp wit. She had a huge circle of friends and family all who will miss her enthusiasm intensely.
She is survived by her two sons, Robert Brophy Rossney II of San Francisco and Michael Wedgwood Rossney; her daughter-in-law, Michele Marie Levesque; and her beloved grandson, Jasper Wedgwood Rossney of Sargentville; Lou’s children, Robert Jon Cooper and his wife, Kuniko Nabika, of Kyoto, Japan, Janet Lorraine Dintelman and her husband, Michael, of San Juanico, Baja California Sur, Mexico, and Karen Elizabeth Cooper; and her cherished granddaughter, Lior Ruth Cooper of Ann Arbor, Mich.; her brother, Stephen Hensleigh Wedgwood and her sister-in-law, Diana Fong-Wedgwood of Oakland, Calif.; her sister, Deborah Wedgwood Marshall; her brother-out-law, John Kimball Petty of Little Deer Isle; her large extended family; and her devoted and loving husband and life partner, Louis Cooper also of Little Deer Isle.
Please remember Sally by donating to the Bagaduce Music Lending Library, 5 Music Library Lane, Blue Hill, ME 04614.
A celebration of Sal’s life will take place 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 20, on the porch of Edgehill in Sargentville.