Stanley Cook, 92; his art captured trains, helped save landmarks

Growing up in Worcester where the railroad tracks ran behind his house, Stanley Warren Cook was captivated by the romance of the old steam-driven trains chugging by.

As an adult, he turned that fascination into art, painting and photographing trains so skillfully they appeared in books and on calendars.

During World War II, Mr. Cook's talent was used by the Army in Europe, where he drew maps that showed what targets were to be bombed and what were to be saved during the war against Germany, friends said.

After the war, Mr. Cook got a chance to fly over Cologne, Germany, "to see the decimated landscape," according to a 1999 oral history done with him by Jessica Turk and Lindsay Turk for the Advanced Placement US history class at Westwood High School.

"Hundreds of buildings destroyed there, and, yet, the Cologne Cathedral stuck out like a sore thumb, practically untouched, and the buildings around it had been destroyed," they quoted him as saying. "That's precision bombing."

Mr. Cook, who created hundreds of paintings in oil, pen-and-ink, watercolors, and lithographs, died Saturday at Clark House in Westwood of complications following a hip fracture. He was 92.

Mr. Cook had lived on his own in Westwood after the death of his wife, Lillian L. (Crosby) Cook in 2001, then moved into assisted living at Traditions in Dedham four years ago. The couple had lived in Westwood for 45 years.

"Stan had a lifelong love of trains and would photograph them all over New England," Robert Folsom of Westwood, Mr. Cook's legal guardian, said yesterday. "Some were printed in train books and others in the calendars of the Mystic Valley Railway Society of Hyde Park."

Russ Rylko, president of the society, said its 2006 calendar included two of Mr. Cook's photographs. "One was the Boston & Maine train passing through Everett, and the other was of the East Wind, running north of Worcester in 1953," he said.

Mr. Cook was born in Worcester, the only child of Scandinavian immigrants, Oke, his father, was from Sweden, and Emma Syniva (Pedersen) was from Norway. In his younger years, Mr. Cook taught Sunday school at Zion Lutheran Church in Worcester and played the violin, Folsom said.

He also played the violin with several Worcester community groups.

His interest in art took him to the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, from which he graduated in 1936. For a time, he worked as a lithographer, Folsom said, for Anderson Brothers in Springfield, Ad Service Engraving Co. in Worcester, and Forbes Lithograph Co. in Chelsea until enlisting in the Army in 1941. He was assigned to the 942d Engineering and Topographic Battalion, "where the Army could use his talents in photometric mapmaking," Folsom said.

"He became a member of a team that made detailed maps of the location of historical buildings in France and Germany from reconnaissance photos taken by a [small] airplane prior to battles, so that important buildings could be saved during a bombing raid," Folsom said in an e-mail. He said Mr. Cook "also helped prepare the maps for the Normandy invasion, and his outfit landed on the beach after the initial invasion."

In the oral history he gave the Westwood High School students, Mr. Cook spoke of the importance of the role of the mapmakers to the Normandy invasion. The people who worked on the maps "were not allowed off their posts, in case they accidentally leaked any important information," the students wrote. "They had to be very secretive, and guards protected them."

They wrote that Mr. Cook told them that "we were the only outfit that knew when and where D-Day would be."

On his return to civilian life, Mr. Cook married Lillian Crosby in Dorchester.

"Stanley returned to work at Forbes Lithograph and took classes under the GI Bill at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston," Folsom said.

Mr. Cook left Forbes in 1954, and, after working for several other lithograph companies and Rustcraft Greeting Cards, he returned to Forbes until retiring in 1976, Folsom said.

By his family's account, the Cooks had an idyllic marriage. Douglas Crosby of Portland, Maine, a nephew by marriage, recalled how the couple "read the classics to each other" and how Lillian Cook would, on little pieces of paper, record the dates upon which her husband had read her the books.

Often Mrs. Crosby accompanied her husband's violin on the piano.

"Stan was a great guy," Crosby said. "You didn't get to know him because he was so modest. But, he was one of those people you wanted to be around, intelligent, gracious, and friendly."

As for Mr. Cook's paintings, the nephew said, "they were very detailed. If he painted grass, you could see every blade."

Nancy Crosby, Douglas's wife, described Mr. Cook as "the sweetest, gentlest man you would ever want to know." His work reflected that, she said. "His paintings were very pure, very detailed and very clear."

There are no immediate relatives.

Funeral services will be held at 1 p.m. tomorrow at the Folsom Funeral Home in Westwood. Burial will be at the New Westwood Cemetery.