Services Set Today for Old Fiddler

CARROLLTON, Texas, May 23. - Funeral services for Charles Allen Cook, 79, retired railroad man and well known as an old-time fiddler, will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Farmers Branch Baptist Church. Burial will be in the Farmers Branch Cemetery.
Cook died Thursday in a Dallas hospital.
Born at Adairville, Ky., Cook had learned to play a violin or fiddle as he chose to call the musician instrument, by the time he was six, and knew many of the old-time favorites of the Kentucky mountains.
Cook came to Denton County with his parents when he was seven years old. As a young man he started working for the M-K-T railway and after he retired several years ago he became a fireman. Later he farmed near Farmers Branch and Carrollton.
One of Cooks most cherished possessions was his fiddle which he said was 155 years old.  It had been given him by an aunt.
Cook participated in most of the old fiddlers' contests in North and East Texas. Perhaps the high spot in Cook's career as a fiddler came while Dan Moody was Governor of Texas.  Moody invited Cook to perform for him at Austin. The story goes that after fifteen minutes of breakdown, Moody beckoned to Cook and asked him to have a seat in the governor's chair.
"I'm making you governor of Texas for five minutes," Moody told him.
Cook is survived by his wife; two sons, Roy Cook and Loyd Cook, both of Dallas; three brothers, Henry Cook of Dallas, Clay Cook of Denton and Jesse G. Cook of Denison; two sisters, Mrs. Nannie Myers of Canyon, Randall County, and Mrs. Cora Hussey of Denton.

Dallas Morning News - May 24, 1952
Submitted by Edward Lynn Williams