| Archive Description | Oral History - Gillian Lewis Cooke
Ms Cooke was born in the suburbs of Birmingham, England. She met her husband, Thomas Cooke, in England while he was stationed there. Her husband is the son of a preacher for First Baptist Church in Sugar Land, Texas. They married in England in 1954 and moved to Sugar Land in 1956.
Gillian not only had to adjust to the heat, the humidity, the bugs, and snakes, but also to the way Americans speak and their customs.
She is writing a book about the bombing of England during World War II. She shares interesting stories about getting off an airplane in New York City and being blasted by the heat, traveling to Texas in a new car with no air conditioning, fainting due to the heat in Texas, and learning to drive in a church parsonage with an open door policy. She even survived driving their old pickup truck to Rosenberg to buy a car with air conditioning and then driving back to Sugar Land in the new car at 5 mph with no drivers license and barely able to operate the vehicle.
Her husband made a career of the Air Force so they moved around in the US and Europe but always came back to Sugar Land as often as possible. Her three children graducated from Dulles High School. Gillian resides in Sugar Land and stays busy as a licensed social worker, Christian counselor, and church minister. She is also a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) volunteer.
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Fort Bend County