David R. Cook
David Reed Cook
November 11, 1928 – October 27, 2025
David Reed Cook passed away on October 27, 2025, at the Mayo Clinic Health System hospital in Eau Claire, from complications after sustaining a fall at his home. He was 96 years old.
Born in Abington township, a suburb of Philadelphia, David was raised in a close-knit and loving family with his older siblings Don and Dorothy and younger sister Donna Jean. His parents were a study in contrasts: his mother Nelle Reed Cook was an intense and somewhat troubled character who loved books and was deeply anchored to her Christian faith; his father Paul James Cook was a tolerant and kind soul whose faith informed his vocation as an educator, notably working for many years as the principal of a majority Black elementary school in Abington. David’s character and career path were strongly shaped by both of their influences.
A child of the Great Depression, David’s family struggled for a time even to put enough food on the table. While his older siblings felt their poverty keenly, David wrote in later years that he and Donna Jean “only remember our childhood as idyllically happy… there was a lot of fun and goofiness in the family.”
David graduated from Abington High School in 1946 and received a BA in English Literature from Boston University in 1950. After serving two years in the Marines, he returned to higher education, receiving an EdD in Psychology from Indiana University in 1957. He spent over 40 years as a university professor, specializing in the subject of marriage and family counselling.
David married his first wife Ann Carol Treadway in April 1961. They soon travelled to Allahabad (now Prayagraj), India, where David had a Fulbright Fellowship to teach at the local university. Returning to the US in early 1962, the couple settled in the Boston area. David taught at Northeastern University and served as Counselling Education Department Chair from 1965-1974. The Cooks moved in 1975 to Menomonie Wisconsin, where David joined the faculty at University of Wisconsin-Stout. He retired in 1992.
David’s teaching legacy can be felt through a whole generation of counsellors and therapists who came through the Marriage and Family Counselling program at UW-Stout and who continue to serve patients in west central Wisconsin and beyond. He was also a leading researcher into the psychological topic of shame, and authored a formal, measurable Internalized Shame Scale which continues to be used by academics and practitioners around the world (it is freely available from the University of Wisconsin online archives at https://minds.wisconsin.edu/handle/1793/89689).
Following his divorce in 1980, David married his second wife, Anne Frantz-Cook, in December 1981. They were married for 32 years, until Anne’s death in 2024. Theirs was a marriage of deep devotion, mutual respect and shared interests; she balanced some of his more challenging qualities with her deep empathy and instinct for inclusiveness. When Anne was diagnosed in 2007 with a slow progressing form of dementia, David became a steadfast caregiver, supporting and guiding her through that long and painful goodbye. In her last years when she had lost all words, he was still to be found visiting her in her care home every day, holding her hand and singing “Time After Time” in his wavering baritone.
David was a deeply spiritual believer and church member throughout his life. He and Anne joined the First Congregational United Church of Christ (UCC) in 1980, and he played an active role there as a church officer, choir member and lay preacher. He read widely in Christian philosophy and in his retirement engaged in theological and political discourse through teaching roles on the Learning in Retirement program and via more than one hundred editions of his “occasional essays” series, which he shared with a wide readership.
He was a lifelong performer, storyteller and lover of the theater. He loved to be on stage and especially loved to make people laugh. He acted in plays in high school and college, and even in his year in India! During his brief service as a Korean War draftee in the Marine Corps – where he was likely one of the only conscientious objectors the Marines ever had – he kept up the morale of the troops by writing and performing skits and writing articles and comic pieces for the base’s newsletter. As a father of young children, he would make up stories, many starring the memorable character “Strawberry Jordan,” creating new adventures for her each night at bedtime.
On arriving in Menomonie in 1975, he immediately joined the thriving amateur theater community at the town’s historic Mabel Tainter Memorial Theater. From his first small role in the 1975-76 season - as a coconut-clad GI in South Pacific - he went on to perform at the Mabel Tainter in most of its seasons over more than three decades. He was also an active member of the Menomonie Theater Guild. Other notable performances at the Mabel Tainter included Pirates of Penzance (the Major General), On Golden Pond (Norman Thayer), Hello Dolly (Rudolph), I Never Sang for My Father (Tom Garrison), The Music Man (Mayor Shinn), Harvey (Elwood P Dowd), Arsenic and Old Lace (Teddy), Thurber Carnival (First Man), The Sunshine Boys (Willie Clark), Noises Off (Freddie Fellowes) and his last major performance, the two-hander The Gin Game (Weller Martin).
David ended his days at the Comforts of Home Memory Care Facility, where Anne had also been cared for in her final years. He and Anne had previously resided together in the Independent Living unit and later he in the Assisted Living unit of the facility. The family wishes to express their deep gratitude to the staff at Comforts of Home, who looked after both David and Anne for many years with professional service and loving care.
David is survived by his three children: Carol Flannagan of Ann Arbor, Michigan; Susan Cook of La Crescent, Minnesota; and Stephen Cook of London, England; his three stepchildren: Kathy Garrity of Westfield, Indiana; Valerie Frantz of Elyria, Ohio; Andrew Frantz of Mount Pleasant, Michigan; as well as eleven grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
A memorial service is planned for 10:30 AM Saturday, March 28, 2026, at the First Congregational United Church of Christ (UCC), 420 Wilson Ave, Menomonie, Wisconsin.
Visitation will be one hour prior to the services at the church on Saturday.
Donations in David’s honor may be made to the First Congregational United Church of Christ. Details of how to donate can be found on the church’s website: https://www.menomonieucc.org/