Ethel Cooper

Caroline Ethel Cooper (25 December 1871 – 25 May 1961) was an Australian musician and diarist best known for the weekly letters she wrote to her sister Emmie in Australia while she was trapped behind enemy lines in Leipzig during World War I.

Early life Cooper was born in Adelaide in 1871, the daughter of Arthur Cooper the deputy surveyor general and Harriette Cooper (née Woodcock) a music teacher. Cooper attended Miss Annie Montgomerie Martin's progressive school and studied music under I. G. Reimann.

WW1 and Letter writing Cooper returned to Leipzig and documented her experiences living in wartime Germany from 31 July 1914 and 1 December 1918 in 227 weekly letters to her sister. She was living in Leipzig when the war started, and she chose to stay. As the war dragged on, she tried to leave but was forbidden.

Cooper returned to Adelaide following the war before returning to Europe to help with relief work in Poland and Greece. was established by her biographer Decie Denholm in 1982 for a student studying the piano.

Personal life Cooper never married. Caroline Ethel Cooper died on 25 May 1961 in Malvern, Australia at the age of 90.