Friday's Photo: Cora Maud Thomas Tooke - From the Files of Marguerite Cook Clark

Cora Maud Thomas Tooke  1883-1982

Cora Maud Thomas Tooke was born on 14 May 1883*in Louisiana, the third child of Newport L. Thomas and Lucy T. Wimberly Thomas.

On 15 October 1907, she married John Tooke. John was born on 17 May 1875, at Mt. Lebanon, Louisiana, the son of John Francis Tooke and Annie Cornelia McDaniel Tooke. Through his parents, he was part of a well-established family in Bienville Parish.

Cora and John had two daughters: Thelma Tooke, born 7 August 1908, and Lucy Annie Tooke, born about 1917 in Louisiana.

Cora’s life remained closely tied to Bienville Parish. She appears in census records in 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940, and 1950, consistently living in the same community where she was raised.

Her husband, John Tooke, died on 26 October 1947, in Ringgold, Bienville Parish, Louisiana. Cora died on 19 February 1982, at the age of 98. She and her husband are buried in Wimberly Cemetery in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.

*The photo of the cemetery stone, found at Find a Grave, shows Cora’s birth year as 1873; however, multiple census records and her reported age at death consistently support a birth year of 1883, which also appears in the Wimberly Family History.

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1900 U.S. census, Bienville Parish, Louisiana, population schedule, Police Jury Ward 4, enumeration district 6, sheet 4B, dwelling 40, family 40, Newport L. Thomas household, Cora M. Thomas; digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7602/records/5897305

 : accessed 24 April 2026); citing NARA microfilm publication T623.

1910 U.S. census, Bienville Parish, Louisiana, population schedule, Police Jury Ward 4, enumeration district 6, sheet 6B, dwelling 63, family 63, John Tooke household, Cora Tooke; digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7884/records/166953192

 : accessed 24 April 2026); citing NARA microfilm publication T624.

1920 U.S. census, Bienville Parish, Louisiana, population schedule, Ward 4, enumeration district 23, sheet 6A, dwelling 118, family 124, John Tooke household, Cora Tooke; digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/6061/records/29023441

 : accessed 24 April 2026); citing NARA microfilm publication T625.

1930 U.S. census, Bienville Parish, Louisiana, population schedule, Police Jury Ward 4, enumeration district 2, sheet 10A, dwelling 198, family 200, John Tooke household, Cora M. Tooke; digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/6224/records/34338058

 : accessed 24 April 2026); citing NARA microfilm publication T626.

1940 U.S. census, Bienville Parish, Louisiana, population schedule, Ward 4, enumeration district 7-16, sheet 1B, household 20, John Tooke household, Cora M. Tooke; digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2442/records/123618735

 : accessed 24 April 2026); citing NARA microfilm publication T627; shows name as Cora Maud.

1950 U.S. census, Bienville Parish, Louisiana, population schedule, Ward 4, enumeration district 7-19, sheet 2, line 14, Cora M. Tooke; digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/62308/records/74893396

 : accessed 24 April 2026); citing National Archives microfilm publication T628.

Cora Thomas Tooke, photograph, no date; digital image, from the privately held photo collection of Marguerite Cook Clark (1913-1989), Waynesville, North Carolina, 2021. Photos were accessed and scanned at the home of Marguerite Cook Clark's daughter in Alpine, Texas on April 28, 2014, September 14, 2014, and November 9 to 11, 2016. Used with permission. 

Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/90292348/cora_maud-tooke: accessed April 24, 2026), memorial page for Cora Maud Thomas Tooke (14 May 1883–19 Feb 1982), Find a Grave Memorial ID 90292348, citing Wimberly Cemetery, Bienville, Bienville Parish, Louisiana, USA; Maintained by A Footstep In Time (contributor 47345816).

Vera Meeks Wimberly, Wimberly Family History, Ancestors, Relatives, and Descendants of William Wimberly, Pioneer from Georgia to Louisiana 1837 (Houston Texas: D. Anderson, 1979), page 127.