Janet Pierson Cooper was born in Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1891. At the age of 16, she went to Boston hoping to be a nurse, but she was rejected because of her age. She was hired as a companion for Dudley Page’s daughter, a diabetic. She lived with the Page family in Stoneham, Massachusetts. After his daughter’s death, Page encouraged Cooper to pursue medical studies and he made the offer to pay for her expenses.
She enrolled at Boston University School of Medicine to become a homeopathic physician, and there she became a member of Zeta Tau Alpha. Cooper earned a bachelor’s degree in 1916 and her medical degree in 1917.
When she heard of an opportunity to be a resident at the Melbourne Homeopathic Hospital in Australia, she applied and was accepted. It was to be a three-term.
When she arrived in October 1917, she was the hospital’s first female physician. On October 22, 1918, she married Robert Jensen.
In the November 1921 Themis, signing her letter, “Yours in ZTA, Janet Cooper Jenson,” she told of her life in Australia:
After three years as resident at the Melbourne Homeopathic Hospital last November I began private practice plus housekeeping. The two work in very well as when practice is busy the housekeeping waits and when practice is dull the housekeeping is a vent for surplus energy and depressed spirits. Even so, I am very happy busy although a long way from home, but that doesn’t matter for the world is much the same everywhere. There are numbers of Americans or exiles, as they term themselves, in Melbourne and it is very pleasant occasionally to discuss among ourselves how we would run Australia along Yankee lines to which the Aussie being usually an Englisher does not take very kindly. Australians on the whole take life much easier than the Americans.
She ended with an offer of hospitality to any visiting sorority sister:
Any Zeta who decides to see this part of the Southern Hemisphere may be sure of an interesting experience and it would be a pleasure for me to show her Melbourne. I appreciate receiving Themis and am sorry I have not contributed earlier. The Boston Alumnae notes always bring on an attack of nostalgia, but I read and reread them just the same.
Robert Jensen died in 1934. On April 6, 1939, she married Frank Swifte. She had two daughters, one of whom was adopted, and she was a “lively grandmother,” according to a 1958 newspaper article.
Professionally, she used her maiden name. She was a dedicated physician and anesthesiologist, and she was active in many community and charitable organizations including the League of Women Voters and the Business and Professional Women’s Club.
In 1950, Cooper was elected to the South Melbourne City Council, the first woman to hold the position. She lost reelection in 1953, but was successful in her 1956 attempt to regain the seat. She served as mayor in 1958-59 and again in 1965.
Cooper died on June 6, 1984.
