Mentone Acreage Donated to The Land Trust

     The Harvard-educated lawyer deeply cared for his Alabama hometown – one of steel and historic social change. He played a major role in the integration of Birmingham’s steel mills and was lauded for his commitment to civil rights with honors during his lifetime and after his passing.  But during and after fighting the good fight, his heart and mind often found solace in the lovely mountains and rivers of
North Alabama near Mentone.

     The Little River West Fork winds quietly through Dekalb County, past Mentone and Desoto Falls on its way to the Little River Canyon National Preserve.  The east bend of the river between Mentone and above Desoto Falls State Park has been preserved forever by the family of the late Jerome “Buddy” Cooper.  His children, Ellen Cooper Erdreich and Carol Cooper, and his grandchildren, Jeremy C. Erdreich, Anna B. Erdreich and Caroline Sokol, have donated 23 acres – including about ¼ mile of riverfront – to The Land Trust of Huntsville & North Alabama.

       Buddy Cooper is an Alabama icon.  Born in Tuscaloosa County to Polish and Lithuanian immigrants in 1913, his family moved to Birmingham when he was six to open one of the city’s early department stores.  He graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School, then served as Justice Hugo Black’s first law clerk from 1937 to 1940.  He enlisted in the U.S. Navy two days after Pearl Harbor and served for 44 months.  Cooper returned to Birmingham and began a distinguished career as a labor and civil rights lawyer.

     Cooper’s firm represented labor unions, groups which were mistrusted during the South’s social unrest in the 1950’s-60’s.  His passion for justice also included civil rights.  “Birmingham was segregated in its medical facilities, churches, synagogues, and schools,” he said in a 1993 Birmingham News article.  “Only in the labor unions was there any common meeting ground of black and white.”

     Major cases which Cooper litigated included Textile Works v. Lincoln Mills, a landmark Supreme Court decision in labor law and federal civil procedures.  He was co-counsel in Reynolds V. Sims (1964), one of a group of decisions that led to the Supreme Court’s historic “one man one vote” decision in Baker v. Carr.  In 1963, he helped facilitate the Steelworkers’ secret wiring – at the request of President Kennedy - of over $200,000 to post bond for the release of 900 protesters and children from Birmingham jails following the Children’s Civil Rights March in May, 1963.     

     “My father had a keen sense of the injustices in America,” said Cooper’s daughter Ellen Erdreich.  “But he’d say, ‘There is a great scale in the sky.  It will come out okay.  We just have to fight for it.’” 

     Another of Buddy Cooper’s passions was the environment.   “My father learned to love the land at an early age.  My grandfather had a country store in Brookwood, Alabama, and gave advice like a county farm agent.  He grew flowers, fruit trees and vegetables, as my father did,” Ellen related. “We rarely took vacations when I was growing up.  We didn’t do beaches.  But my father loved the mountains and the cool weather.  His idea of a vacation was going to Mentone in North Alabama.”

     Cooper and his wife honeymooned on Lookout Mountain and took their young family to a cabin in Mentone for a vacation.  “Mentone has so many wildflowers and trees that he was fascinated.  When he found the property on the Little River, Daddy had romantic visions of going back to nature and wanted to build a real cabin – no running water with a dirt floor.  My Mother told him that it sounded like a great idea, but she was going to have a kitchen.  A great evening for him was sleeping on the porch and listening to the sounds of the woods,” Ellen continued.

     Cooper’s son-in-law, former Congressman Ben Erdreich, said, “Buddy always wanted his property to remain wild.  The cabin was built on the edge of his Mentone land so that the bulk of the property was in its natural state.  He felt that protecting woodlands was very much a civic responsibility.  His Mentone property was his wilderness.”

     “Daddy learned a lot about nature and preservation from Supreme Court Justice William Douglas,” continued Mrs. Erdreich.  “Justice Douglas came to the Supreme Court when he was Justice Black’s law clerk.  Daddy would go to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal just to hike, sometimes with Justice Douglas.  This canal was later preserved through the efforts of Justice Douglas.”

     “My father taught us to be respectful of nature,” Mrs. Erdreich said.  “’You are an accumulation of your past’” was what he’d say.  He was active in conservancy efforts in Birmingham.  He served as president of Ruffner Mountain Nature Center and was a Lifetime Director-at-large for the Birmingham Audubon Society.  He also helped set aside the Sipsey Wilderness.  After his passing in 2003, his will stipulated that our Mentone property ‘be enjoyed and remain as natural woodlands.’”

     “Buddy Cooper accomplished what most of us strive to do – to make a difference,” said Land Trust Executive Director Cynthia Parker.  “The Land Trust is grateful that we are able to help make his dream for this lovely property become a reality.  Mentone is growing rapidly, as is Huntsville and all of North Alabama.  We hope that the preservation of the Cooper property may encourage other land owners to protect their property from development via donation or Conservation Easements.”

     “You can see what happens in bucolic and beautiful areas like Mentone: it turns into suburbs,” Mrs. Erdreich stated.  “People are building mansions on the river.  Our family wanted to carry out his wishes of keeping this property as natural as possible.  He would be thrilled that The Land Trust is going to take care of it.”

     Buddy Cooper created a legacy of caring for people and for nature.  In his eulogy for Mr. Cooper, Rabbi Jonathan Miller concluded, “Buddy had a cabin up in Mentone.  It was quiet.  He loved going there every season of the year.  It was heaven for Buddy.  I am sure that heaven for Buddy is that corner of Northeast Alabama.  I don’t want to say to Buddy to rest in peace.  I want to tell him to walk in Mentone, to enjoy the nature that God provides the righteous in Heaven, and not to worry.  We will take his legacy and keep it alive.”

            The Land Trust, Alabama’s first land trust, is a member supported non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of natural lands for public enjoyment and prosperity in ten counties of North Alabama.  Since 1987, The Land Trust has protected and maintains over 5,100 acres and has created 33+ miles of public trails on three land preserves – each larger than Central Park and all within Huntsville city limits.