Verna Cook was born on October 19, 1890 in Spokane, Washington, the daughter of a newspaper editor and a concert singer. After she graduated from Spokane High School in 1908, her family sent Verna and her sister to Boston, where they studied for a year at the Commonwealth Avenue School for young ladies.11The Commonwealth Avenue School, Boston, Massachusetts, College Preparatory Course of Study Diploma, 1908, in Verna Cook Shipway Papers, MSS 0105 (cited in notes below as Shipway Papers), box ...
