Fred Cook was in the photograph taken one Sunday afternoon in a Galesburg photographer's studio. He is the second boy from the left of those standing in the photograph. The group of twelve teenage boys called themselves the Dirty Dozen. They weren't a gang that got into trouble. They were just a group of boys who sang together, went to school together and played together.

 

Carl Sandburg makes no mention of Fred Cook in his autobiography Always the Young Strangers. He may not have known him as well as some of the other boys in the Dirty Dozen due to the difference in their ages.

 

Fred Cook was born March 24, 1881, in Sparta Township, Knox County. His parents were Jacob L. and Matilda Johnson Cook. Jacob Cook was born in McCullumsburg, Pennsylvania, and came to Illinois as a young man. He worked as a farm hand in Sparta Township. Mrs. Cook was born in Sweden and came to America at the age of eighteen. She maintained her membership in the Andover Lutheran Church her entire life. They were married February 19, 1878, in Cambridge. They were blessed with three boys and three girls.

 

Apparently, Fred was sent to grade school in Galesburg in 1892-93. The city directory of that year lists him as a student boarding at 539 East Brooks Street, which wasn't far from the Sandburg home. Even though Fred was younger than the other members of the Dirty Dozen, this may have been the reason he was included in the group.

 

The Cook family moved to Galesburg about 1898. They lived on Elm Street two houses north of Main Street. The property is very near the present day location of the exit ramp from the southbound lane of Interstate 74. Mr. and Mrs Cook lived there until their deaths. Mr. Cook died July 4, 1929, and Mrs. Cook died August 24, 1938. They were  buried in Linwood Cemetery.

 

Fred is listed in the 1898-99 city directory as working at the Purington Brick and Terra Cotta Company in East Galesburg. Later his father and two brothers were also employed there. The company was located in East Galesburg and had been established in 1890 by D.V. Purington and W.S. Purington of Chicago.

 

The process of making paving bricks was labor intensive. Shale harvested from nearby pits was crushed, mixed with sand and other ingredients, dampened and molded. The green bricks were allowed to dry and then stacked in a kiln. The bricks were fired in the kiln until vitrification took place. The kiln required four days to cool. The bricks were then stacked for shipping. Young boys were employed to spread sand between the layers of bricks in the kilns. The sand kept the bricks from sticking together.

 

On September 18, 1915, Fred married Dorothea R. Sims in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. They later lived in East Moline where Fred was a carpenter. They had a son Marvin and a daughter Kathleen. In the 1920 United States census, Fred is listed as a carpenter/contractor. In the 1940 census Fred, his wife and daughter were living in Davenport, Iowa. He owned his own home and his annual income was listed as $1400 (equal to $23,901.20 in today's money).

 

The Social Security Death Index lists Fred Cook's death as February, 1970. He was buried in Fairmount Cemetery in Davenport.  He lived a long life like both of his parents. (His father lived to be 76 years old and his mother died at the age of 85.).