Italia Isabella Cook (1844-1923) came to Covina in 1886 with her daughters Frances and Alice to visit her father Edwin R. Richmond (1818-1889), a shopkeeper who had settled here in 1882. Edwin’s second wife Harriet died that November, so Italia may have come out to help care for her. Regardless, the visit became a permanent residency, so Italia’s husband, pharmacist Benjamin Franklin Cook (1837-1904), joined his family here the following year. Their eldest daughter Mary was then in college and didn’t make it to Covina until around 1909, after her own husband died. Although the Cooks were a Wisconsin clan, Italia herself was born in upstate New York. Italia Street was named in 1901 on the Richmond tract, owned by the Cooks on land that Italia had inherited from her father. (There had been some kerfuffle over his estate, as Edwin had married his third wife Amanda mere months before his death.) Perhaps Italia Cook’s greatest contribution to Covina was cofounding the historic Holy Trinity Episcopal Church and serving as its organist.
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