Hope Cooke
Encyclopedia
Hope Cooke is an American
socialite
who was the "Gyalmo" (Queen Consort
) of the 12th Chogyal
(King
) of Sikkim
. But Palden was to be the last king of Sikkim as a protectorate
state under India. By 1973, the country and their marriage was crumbling; soon Sikkim was annexed by India. Cooke returned to New York City
with her two children. They were divorced in 1980; and Namgyal died of cancer in 1982. She wrote a memoir, Time Change (1981), and began a career as an urban historian, guiding walking tour
s for the Museum of the City of New York
. She now gives the walks independently, lectures on New York history, and teaches history at Birch Wathen Lenox School in Manhattan
.
, to Irish father John J. Cooke, a flight instructor, who left shortly after Hope's birth. Her mother was Hope Noyes (the former Mrs. James Mulford Townsend Jr.), an amateur pilot who died in January 1942 at age 25 when the plane she was flying solo crashed; suicide was suspected.
After her parents' divorce in November 1941, Cooke and her half-sister, Harriet Townsend, moved to a New York City
apartment across the hall from their maternal grandparents, Helen (Humpstone) and Winchester Noyes, the president of J.H. Winchester & Co., an international shipping brokerage firm. There, they were raised by a succession of governesses. Her grandfather died when she was 12; her grandmother, three years later. Cooke became the ward
of her aunt and uncle, Mary Paul (Noyes) and Selden Chapin
, a former US Ambassador to Iran
and Peru
. She studied at Chapin School, in New York. She attended The Madeira School
for three years before finishing high school in Iran.
at Sarah Lawrence College
and sharing an apartment with actress Jane Alexander
. She went on a summer trip to India and met Palden Thondup Namgyal
, Crown Prince of Sikkim, in the bar of the Windamere Hotel
in Darjeeling, India
. He was a recent widower with two sons and a daughter; and, at 36, he was nearly twice her age. They were immediately drawn to each other by the similar isolation of their childhoods. Two years later, in 1961, their engagement was announced; but the wedding was put off for more than a year because astrologers in both Sikkim and India warned that 1962 was an inauspicious year for marriages.
On 20 March 1963, Hope Cooke, an American Anglican, married the Crown Prince of Sikkim in a Buddhist
monastery
. Although she was dropped from the Social Register
, the marriage was enthusiastically reported in National Geographic
magazine; and The New Yorker
followed the royal couple on one of their yearly trips to America. He became monarch of Sikkim nine months later but was deposed in 1975 and confined to his palace under house arrest.
They soon separated; and Cooke returned to Manhattan
, where she raised her children, Palden and Hope Leezum. The royal couple divorced in 1980, and the Chogyal died of cancer in 1982 in New York City.
. This time around, she felt "profoundly displaced" in the city and started going on walking tours and then creating her own. She studied Dutch journals, old church sermons, and newspaper articles to acquaint herself with the city and lectured on the social history
of New York. She also wrote a weekly column, "Undiscovered Manhattan," for The Daily News. She wrote a memoir of her life in Sikkim, Time Change: an autobiography (1981), and, with Jacques D'Amboise, published "Teaching the Magic of Dance."
Cooke remarried in 1983 to Mike Wallace
, Ph.D., a Pulitzer prize-winning historian and Distinguished Professor of History at John Jay College of Criminal Justice
. They later divorced.
Her son, Prince Palden, a New York banker and financial advisor, married Kesang Deki Tashi and has a son and two daughters. Cooke's daughter, Princess Hope, graduated from Milton Academy and Georgetown University and married (and later divorced) Thomas Gwyn Reich Jr., a U.S. Foreign Service officer. She later married Yep Wangyal Tobden, who was formerly the Sikkim Commissioner of Police.http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=153154714677
Cooke lives in Brooklyn Heights
and is a tour guide and historian in New York City.
She was a consultant for the PBS series, New York: A Documentary Film
(1999–2001), as was her former husband.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
socialite
Socialite
A socialite is a person who participates in social activities and spends a significant amount of time entertaining and being entertained at fashionable upper-class events....
who was the "Gyalmo" (Queen Consort
Monarch
A monarch is the person who heads a monarchy. This is a form of government in which a state or polity is ruled or controlled by an individual who typically inherits the throne by birth and occasionally rules for life or until abdication...
) of the 12th Chogyal
Chogyal
The Chogyal were the monarchs of the former kingdoms of Sikkim and Ladakh, which were ruled by separate branches of the Namgyal family. The Chogyal, or divine ruler, was the absolute potentate of Sikkim from 1642 to 1975, when its monarchy was abrogated and its people voted to make Sikkim India's...
(King
Monarch
A monarch is the person who heads a monarchy. This is a form of government in which a state or polity is ruled or controlled by an individual who typically inherits the throne by birth and occasionally rules for life or until abdication...
) of Sikkim
Sikkim
Sikkim is a landlocked Indian state nestled in the Himalayan mountains...
. But Palden was to be the last king of Sikkim as a protectorate
Protectorate
In history, the term protectorate has two different meanings. In its earliest inception, which has been adopted by modern international law, it is an autonomous territory that is protected diplomatically or militarily against third parties by a stronger state or entity...
state under India. By 1973, the country and their marriage was crumbling; soon Sikkim was annexed by India. Cooke returned to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
with her two children. They were divorced in 1980; and Namgyal died of cancer in 1982. She wrote a memoir, Time Change (1981), and began a career as an urban historian, guiding walking tour
Walking tour
Walking tour may be defined has having one or more of the following characteristics:* A full or partial-day tour of one or more tourist destinations, which can be led by a tour guide, an escort, or be self-guided....
s for the Museum of the City of New York
Museum of the City of New York
The Museum of the City of New York is an art gallery and history museum founded in 1923 to present the history of New York City, USA and its people...
. She now gives the walks independently, lectures on New York history, and teaches history at Birch Wathen Lenox School in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
.
Early life and family
Cooke was born in San Francisco, CaliforniaCalifornia
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, to Irish father John J. Cooke, a flight instructor, who left shortly after Hope's birth. Her mother was Hope Noyes (the former Mrs. James Mulford Townsend Jr.), an amateur pilot who died in January 1942 at age 25 when the plane she was flying solo crashed; suicide was suspected.
After her parents' divorce in November 1941, Cooke and her half-sister, Harriet Townsend, moved to a New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
apartment across the hall from their maternal grandparents, Helen (Humpstone) and Winchester Noyes, the president of J.H. Winchester & Co., an international shipping brokerage firm. There, they were raised by a succession of governesses. Her grandfather died when she was 12; her grandmother, three years later. Cooke became the ward
Ward (law)
In law, a ward is someone placed under the protection of a legal guardian. A court may take responsibility for the legal protection of an individual, usually either a child or incapacitated person, in which case the ward is known as a ward of the court, or a ward of the state, in the United States,...
of her aunt and uncle, Mary Paul (Noyes) and Selden Chapin
Selden Chapin
Selden Chapin was a career foreign service officer and United States diplomat.-Biography:Selden Chapin was born at Erie, Pennsylvania. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1919 and served in the U.S. Navy from 1919 to 1925. He married Mary Paul Noyes, March 30, 1927.He was...
, a former US Ambassador to Iran
United States Ambassador to Iran
Prior to 1944, Iran was not served by a United States ambassador; instead, a diplomatic minister was sent instead. After the revolution in 1944, the first ambassador was then named....
and Peru
United States Ambassador to Peru
The following is a list of United States Ambassadors, or other Chiefs of Mission, to Peru. The title given by the United States State Department to this position is currently Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary.-See also:...
. She studied at Chapin School, in New York. She attended The Madeira School
The Madeira School
The Madeira School is a private, non-denominational preparatory boarding school for girls located in McLean, Virginia, United States. Originally located on 19th Street near Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C., it was founded by Lucy Madeira Wing in 1906 and moved to the Northern Virginia suburb of...
for three years before finishing high school in Iran.
Marriage to the Crown Prince of Sikkim
In 1959, Cooke, was a freshman majoring in Asian StudiesAsian studies
Asian studies, a term used usually in the United States for Oriental studies and is concerned with the Asian peoples, their cultures, languages, history and politics...
at Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College is a private liberal arts college in the United States, and a leader in progressive education since its founding in 1926. Located just 30 minutes north of Midtown Manhattan in southern Westchester County, New York, in the city of Yonkers, this coeducational college offers...
and sharing an apartment with actress Jane Alexander
Jane Alexander
Jane Alexander is an American actress, author, and former director of the National Endowment for the Arts. Although perhaps best known for playing the female lead in The Great White Hope on both stage and screen, Alexander has played a wide array of roles in both theater and film and has committed...
. She went on a summer trip to India and met Palden Thondup Namgyal
Palden Thondup Namgyal
Palden Thondup Namgyal was the 12th and last Chogyal of Sikkim.At six, Namgyal became a student at St. Joseph's Convent in Kalimpong, but had to terminate his studies due to attacks of malaria...
, Crown Prince of Sikkim, in the bar of the Windamere Hotel
Windamere Hotel
Windamere Hotel, built in the 1930s, is a heritage hotel situated on Observatory Hill, in Darjeeling, India.-History:The hotel started out as boarding house for bachelor British tea planters in Darjeeling, in what was then British India, in the late 1930s. It was acquired by Tenduf La, a Sikkimese...
in Darjeeling, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. He was a recent widower with two sons and a daughter; and, at 36, he was nearly twice her age. They were immediately drawn to each other by the similar isolation of their childhoods. Two years later, in 1961, their engagement was announced; but the wedding was put off for more than a year because astrologers in both Sikkim and India warned that 1962 was an inauspicious year for marriages.
On 20 March 1963, Hope Cooke, an American Anglican, married the Crown Prince of Sikkim in a Buddhist
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
monastery
Monastery
Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...
. Although she was dropped from the Social Register
Social Register
Specific to the United States, the Social Register is a directory of names and addresses of prominent American families who form the social elite, . The "Directory" automatically includes the President of the United States and the First Family, and in the past always included the U.S. Senators and...
, the marriage was enthusiastically reported in National Geographic
National Geographic Magazine
National Geographic, formerly the National Geographic Magazine, is the official journal of the National Geographic Society. It published its first issue in 1888, just nine months after the Society itself was founded...
magazine; and The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
followed the royal couple on one of their yearly trips to America. He became monarch of Sikkim nine months later but was deposed in 1975 and confined to his palace under house arrest.
They soon separated; and Cooke returned to Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, where she raised her children, Palden and Hope Leezum. The royal couple divorced in 1980, and the Chogyal died of cancer in 1982 in New York City.
Later life
With Child Support from Namgyal and a trust fund from her grandparents, she took an apartment in Yorkville, ManhattanYorkville, Manhattan
Yorkville is a neighborhood in the greater Upper East Side, in the Borough of Manhattan in New York City. Yorkville's boundaries include: the East River on the east, 96th Street on the north, Third Avenue on the west and 72nd Street to the south. However, its southern boundary is a subject of...
. This time around, she felt "profoundly displaced" in the city and started going on walking tours and then creating her own. She studied Dutch journals, old church sermons, and newspaper articles to acquaint herself with the city and lectured on the social history
Social history
Social history, often called the new social history, is a branch of History that includes history of ordinary people and their strategies of coping with life. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in history departments...
of New York. She also wrote a weekly column, "Undiscovered Manhattan," for The Daily News. She wrote a memoir of her life in Sikkim, Time Change: an autobiography (1981), and, with Jacques D'Amboise, published "Teaching the Magic of Dance."
Cooke remarried in 1983 to Mike Wallace
Mike Wallace (historian)
Mike Wallace is an American historian, Distinguished Professor of History at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York, where he has taught since 1971, and the director of the Gotham Center for New York City History....
, Ph.D., a Pulitzer prize-winning historian and Distinguished Professor of History at John Jay College of Criminal Justice
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
The John Jay College of Criminal Justice is a senior college of the City University of New York in Midtown Manhattan, New York City and is the only liberal arts college with a criminal justice and forensic focus in the United States. The college offers programs in Forensic Science and Forensic...
. They later divorced.
Her son, Prince Palden, a New York banker and financial advisor, married Kesang Deki Tashi and has a son and two daughters. Cooke's daughter, Princess Hope, graduated from Milton Academy and Georgetown University and married (and later divorced) Thomas Gwyn Reich Jr., a U.S. Foreign Service officer. She later married Yep Wangyal Tobden, who was formerly the Sikkim Commissioner of Police.http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=153154714677
Cooke lives in Brooklyn Heights
Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn
Brooklyn Heights is a culturally diverse neighborhood within the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Originally referred to as 'Brooklyn Village', it has been a prominent area of Brooklyn since 1834. As of 2000, Brooklyn Heights sustained a population of 22,594 people. The neighborhood is part of...
and is a tour guide and historian in New York City.
She was a consultant for the PBS series, New York: A Documentary Film
New York: A Documentary Film
New York: A Documentary Film is an eight-part, 17½ hour, American documentary film on the history of New York City. It was directed by Ric Burns and originally aired in the U.S. on PBS. The film was a co-production of Thirteen New York and WGBH Boston....
(1999–2001), as was her former husband.
Publications
- Time Change: an autobiography, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981. ISBN 0671412256.
- Teaching the Magic of Dance, New York : Simon & Schuster, 1983 (with Jacques D'Amboise). ISBN 0671460773.
- Seeing New York : History Walks for Armchair and Footloose Travelers, Philadelphia : Temple University Press, 1995. ISBN 1566392896.
External links
- Review of Time Change New York Times, February 28, 1981
- "Where There's Hope", TIME, March 29, 1963
- "Sikkim: A Queen Revisited", TIME, January 3, 1969
- University of Hawaii Museum. Sikkim - Woman's Informal Ensemble. (KhoKho (costume)Kho or Bakhu is a traditional dress worn by Bhutia, ethnic Tibetans of Sikkim. It is a loose cloak type garment that is fastened at the neck on one side and near the waist with a silk or cotton belt, similar to the Tibetan chuba, but sleeveless.Women wear a silken full sleeve blouse called honju...
dress worn by Hope CookeHope CookeHope Cooke is an American socialite who was the "Gyalmo" of the 12th Chogyal of Sikkim. But Palden was to be the last king of Sikkim as a protectorate state under India. By 1973, the country and their marriage was crumbling; soon Sikkim was annexed by India. Cooke returned to New York City...
in the 1960s, on Flickr).