Former U.S. Rep. Merrill Alonzo Cook, R-Utah, often hailed as a “maverick” during his forays into politics and his time in office, died Monday in Salt Lake City at the age of 79.
In a news release, son David Cook hailed him as a “proud husband, father, entrepreneur and one of Utah’s most distinctive and independent public servants.” He wrote that his dad “combined success in business with civic service and was deeply devoted to his family, education and politics.”
After unsuccessful bids as an independent to be Utah’s governor in 1988 and 1992, Cook was elected to Congress. He ran as a Republican and served two terms, from 1997 to 2001, representing Utah’s 2nd Congressional District. David Cook said he often funded his own campaigns so he wouldn’t be beholden to special interests.
He told Deseret News that Cook was not afraid to buck his party as he followed his conscience and was in many ways ahead of his time, with an “unfiltered style that is more appreciated today than it was in his time.”
While in Congress, Cook was assigned to the House Banking Committee, the Space Science Subcommittee, and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. In his elected role, he helped secure funding for the Salt Lake Olympic Games at a time when getting full funding was somewhat tricky. He worked with Mitt Romney, who was then CEO and president of Salt Lake City’s Olympic Games, and others to turn the fiscal situation around, “which was something that my dad was very good at,” David Cook said. “He had a real mind for finance and did very well in business.”
The younger Cook said he always suspected his dad got a little bored with business and that’s why he “ended up using most of his personal fortune in politics.”
Merrill Cook was unafraid to buck his party and vote his conscience, his son said, recalling passionate conversations about doing what he felt was right regardless, which sometimes put him at odds with party leadership. One memory that stands out is his father’s refusal to vote to give China most favored nation status, despite political pressure from his colleagues. “It was a teaching moment,” said David Cook. “Now there’s lots of support for his view. He didn’t feel party affiliation should determine how he voted or talked.”
And talk was a big deal in the Cook household, added David Cook, who described deep discussions around the dinner table that often centered on politics. “You had to have an opinion. He didn’t care what it was, but wanted you to support it. We had many spirited discussions.”
Merrill Cook was born May 6, 1946, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Dr. Melvin Alonzo Cook and Wanda Garfield Cook, but was raised in Salt Lake City near East High School. There, he learned to love baseball, debate and politics. His very first foray into politics was in middle school.
After graduating from East High School in 1964, Cook served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in London, England. He also earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Utah in 1969.
It was at the university that he met Camille Sanders. They married in the Salt Lake Temple and moved to Boston, where she supported the family and studied opera while he earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1972. The couple had five children.
When they returned to Utah, Cook co-founded a mining explosives manufacturing company, Cook Slurry Company, with his father and served as president and CEO.
His son describes Cook as “a maverick — independent, intellectually curious and unafraid to challenge conventional thinking.”
He was also a man who didn’t talk much about himself and probably could have benefited, at least in the political world, if he’d been better at self-promotion, David Cook said. As his father’s life was winding down, David Cook said he and his siblings heard many stories they’d never known about their father’s generosity and kindness toward others. He added that his father never made promises in case he couldn’t keep them, but “he always showed up” for others.
To his children, the greatest gift from their father, according to David Cook, was the example of total devotion their father showed to his wife Camille as she endured early onset Alzheimer’s. The disease was aggressive, but Cook never wavered in caring for her, later calling that decade the most meaningful of his life.
Said David Cook, “My father was a force of nature in politics and in our family. He had his rough edges, but his finest hour was caring for my mother during her long illness. I like to think of Jesus looking at his devotion and saying, ‘I can work with that.’”
His son describes a man who could be cantankerous and sometimes bitingly witty, but also very, very funny. “We would just laugh so hard when we were with him. And he never took himself too seriously. He appreciated a good joke more than anybody. News articles about him could be very mean and people would talk about him being the perennial candidate and a big loser and he lost so many races before he won. I would go to school and some of my teachers and some of the students would say some really mean things. I was really hurt by that but my dad could take a good joke at his own expense.”
A particularly biting cartoon targeting Cook struck his family as horrible. “He thought it was hilarious,” David Cook said.
Cook is survived by his five children: Brian Merrill Cook (Nipa Cook), Alison Cook Ross (Jeff Ross), Barbara Ann Cook Crowther (Glen Crowther), David Michael Cook (Kimber Tillemann-Dick Cook), and Michelle Cook Bertoli (Thornton Bertoli Jr.); 14 grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; his brothers Garfield Cook and Krehl Cook; and his sister Barbara Cook.
A public memorial is planned for noon, July 18, on the grounds of the Utah state Capitol in Salt Lake City. He will be buried in the Salt Lake City Cemetery in a private graveside service.
