My Genealogy Hound

PERRY ELLIS COOK.
Perry Ellis Cook, contractor, is a citizen of Topeka, who has watched his city develop from almost a village into a beautiful and well-regulated capital city. He was born in Indiana and is a son of Oscar and Charity (Wiley) Cook, residents of Brownsburg, Indiana.

The ancestors of Mr. Cook date back to the early settlers around Seneca, New York, from which section his grandfather migrated to Boone County, Indiana, when that locality was one vast forest. He was accompanied by his son Oscar, who was born at Seneca, in March, 1823, and now resides with a daughter within six miles of where his father settled in his boyhood. For generations back the family have followed agricultural pursuits. Mr. Cook’s mother came from an old and distinguished Kentucky family, all of whom were land-owners. Of the immediate family, four brothers and one sister still survive. They are scattered, living in Indianapolis, Central Iowa, Chicago, Jefferson County, Iowa, and Brownsburg, Indiana.

Perry Ellis Cook was reared on his father’s farm and attended the public schools of his native county. At the age of 17 years he left home and went to Iowa, having previously learned the carpenter’s trade, which he has followed more or less ever since. After his marriage, which took place in Iowa, he returned home for a visit and remained a year, but in 1884 he decided to locate permanently in the West, and accompanied by his wife, came to Topeka. Here he found a fine opening in his trade and he continued to follow it until 1900, when he entered contracting and now has a well-established business in that line. He has not only witnessed the erection of all of the important buildings here, but he has put up many of them himself, notably the Commercial Hotel and the annex to the Keith-Rhodes Hospital and Sanitarium. The greater bulk of his work has been, however, the erection of fine residences, his own being a good example,—a very attractive home situated in East Hill Addition.

Mr. Cook married, when a resident of Iowa, a young lady named Randa Conger, who was born in Illinois, but whose home had been in Marshall County, Iowa, since she was a year and a half old. A family of four children have been added to the happy family circle, namely: Wilbur, aged 19 years; Blanche, aged 16; Perry Ellis, Jr., aged 13; and Herbert, aged 11.

Mr. Cook is a man of social nature and enjoys membership in several fraternal organizations, among which are the Odd Fellows, the Eagles and the Modern Woodmen of America. He is a self-made man and has met with the greater part of his business success since coming to Kansas. He reached Topeka, which was then unpaved and even wanted sewerage, with a capital of $25. This has been turned over many times and that he is now in the enjoyment of ample means is but the natural result of his industry and enterprise.