By William Smith
Burlington said goodbye to a local icon on Wednesday, a man who found success through a myriad of interests, compounding his talents with extraordinary kindness.
The celebration of life for Bob Cook, the late owner of Grandpa’s Ice Cream, was Wednesday evening at Lunning Chapel in Burlington.
Cook was known for his affability and insistence on meeting his customers face-to-face. He was often the first point of contact for new arrivals to Burlington, spinning true stories of a multifaceted life that went far beyond ice cream.
But the ice cream was there first.
“He always made homemade ice cream,” said his daughter, Amy Eggar.
Cook learned how to hand-churn his ice cream at a young age — a family tradition that eventually evolved into a signature Burlington business. But that didn’t happen until the final years of his life.
A Vietnam veteran who specialized in communications and refused to tell his children about the horrors he saw on the Mekong River, Cook was first and foremost a photographer.
“He had these horrible images burned into his head (during the war),” Eggar said.
To counteract that, Cook filled his camera lens with beauty. He was stationed in Hawaii during much of his three-year tour and was offered a civilian job as a photographer at Pearl Harbor when his service was up.
Cook turned it down. He had a young wife, Gwen, who was longing to be around her family in Iowa. Married on a military base in Pensacola, Fla., the couple celebrated their 51st wedding anniversary before Bob’s death.
A gentleman to the end, especially to his family, Cook pulled up stakes and came to Iowa.
“Who turns down a job in Hawaii?” Eggar said with a laugh.
Equally confident and humble in his abilities, Cook became a wedding photographer. He also had a knack for aerial photography and freelanced for the local newspaper.
Then, he became a business owner, taking over PhotoVisions in Burlington so he could sell cameras instead of pictures. He lived for the photo lab, Eggar said.
“Even if you didn’t buy a camera from him, if you brought your camera in, Dad would still show you how to use it. Though he preferred if you bought it from him,” Eggar said, still laughing.
Cook’s family grew along with his business. His children were always at his heels, working at PhotoVisions and his other business ventures. He owned and sold cell phones through U.S. Cellular; he ran a Dish Network store.
In his spare time, Cook became a skilled carpenter, constructing entire additions to existing homes. He was a certified hot air balloon pilot and traveled on a regular basis.
“He was so adventurous,” Eggar said. “He never sat down. He was always busy. He would help anyone, absolutely anyone.”
Through it, all was the ice cream - not as a business, but as a family tradition and a special homemade treat for private family gatherings.
There was never any expectation for Bob’s children to stay in his shadow or follow in his footsteps. A jack-of-all-trades who discovered new interests on a regular basis, Cook couldn’t settle on a singular passion and he certainly didn’t expect his children to.
“He would never push us. There were never any expectations. He encouraged us to try and fail,” Eggar said.
Ever adaptable even into his final years, Cook saw the death of photo labs on the horizon as the digital age loomed over the new millennium. Without the lab, his interest in photography waned.
Perhaps sensing the perfect bookend of his life – or maybe because he just really liked making ice cream – Cook opened Grandpa’s Ice Cream at the end of 2010.
It was a tall order for a town with two Dairy Queens and a plethora of fast-food restaurants sporting milkshakes on the menu. But his children never doubted him. Instead, they joined him. They all learned to make ice cream.
In a world of pre-manufactured everything, the unique, rich taste was certainly a draw. But it was Bob’s personality that lent the shop notoriety.
“He loved to visit with people. He loved talking to elderly people and learning from them,” Eggar said. “Children always gravitated toward his warm nature.”
Bob was content at the end of his life, but far from finished. He died at the age of 71, another lifetime’s worth of adventures unexplored.
“He was up for anything. Absolutely anything. He didn’t want to leave. He had so much he still wanted to do,” Eggar said.
The legacy of Grandpa’s Ice Cream will continue through his son, Jason Cook, who was running the shop as his father’s health failed. He opened the shop back up a few days after his father’s death, just as Bob would have wanted.
Like his dad, Jason is surrounded by nieces, nephews, and Bob’s grandchildren, all trained in the delectable art of transforming milk and cream into a tiny taste of heaven.
A photo submitted by a family member shows a smiling Bob Cook.