A photo of U.S. Army Staff Sergeant John P. Cox while in combat duty during the Korean War.
By Tom Kirvan
Legal News
Three weeks before his scheduled retirement from the federal bench, Chief Judge Sean Cox suffered a setback that he knew was coming and yet tried to brace himself from its finality.
On July 7, at an assisted living facility in metro Detroit, Cox was at the bedside of his father when the 97-year-old family patriarch passed away after being in declining health for several years.
The departed, John Patrick Cox, was a forceful presence in the family, a man who “lived a long and extraordinary life,” according to the obituary that was written largely by his son, former Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, working in important contributions from his two brothers, Sean and Wayne County Circuit Judge Kevin Cox.
One anecdotal story “tells it all,” the former Attorney General wrote in the obituary.
“On his 93rd birthday, John was in isolation in his assisted living room due to the COVID mandate. His wife Rita was in a different room on the same floor but had not seen him in weeks as she was locked down too. When one of his sons called to say ‘Happy Birthday’ and wondered whether John was down about being isolated on his birthday, John responded, ‘Michael, don’t worry about me.
The Nazis tried bombing my neighborhood in 1940 and 10 years later the Chinese Communists shot at me in Korea, so this isn’t so bad. Plus, one of the girls who dropped off my food plate said she would get me a beer!’”
His upbeat outlook on life defied conventional wisdom, as he was raised in a family of limited means in Parkhead on the east end of Glasgow, Scotland.
“Parkhead was a primarily Irish Catholic community of laborers recruited to work in the forge works of Parkhead that fed Glasgow’s shipbuilding industry,” according to Mr. Cox’s obituary. “Catholics like John’s parents lived day-to-day as itinerant construction laborers or working in the fish markets or hustlers or joined the British Army. In the 1930s, Glasgow was the poorest city in Western Europe, but John and his family had faith in each other and their Catholicism.
“John left school when he was 13 at the beginning of World War II. He joined the carpenters’ guild and became a journeyman carpenter. As a 17-year-old at the end of World War II, John began several years of traveling from one English city to another working on rebuilding bombed-out buildings, while trying to figure out how to get to America. Toward the end of 1948, he was able to immigrate to Toronto – one step closer to Detroit ‘where the streets were paved with gold, the land of milk and honey,’ he used to say.
“As part of that process, he took a bus to Sarnia, walked across the Blue Water Bridge, and then hitchhiked to Detroit to meet his sponsor. By the beginning of 1950, he was admitted and established a new life in America. But there was a hitch: a few months later, the Korean War began, and he was drafted. Faced with the choice between going to war, to stay in America or going home, he chose war to obtain a new life in America. He spent a year in Korea, running a machine gun squad as an Army staff sergeant, enduring heavy combat that he did not talk about until he was in his 70s, and ended up being sworn in as a citizen by the end of the war. He literally fought his way into America.”
By doggedly chasing the sometimes elusive “American dream,” John had the good fortune of meeting the “love of his life,” Rita, at an Irish social club. The couple began raising a family of three sons, as John went from being a union carpenter with Detroit Public Schools to a white-collar civil engineer with Ford Motor Co. after obtaining a degree from Lawrence Tech.
“His work was motivated by his love of his family,” according to his obituary. “He simply did not know anything different. He made sure that if nothing else his kids learned how to work. And learned loyalty to the family. And to stand up for your family and do what you think is right.
“At the end of his life, John could not walk, and sometimes struggled to say what he wanted to say, but each day he showed his love for his wife and kids and grandkids by his simple will to live – to live each day as best one can.”
Legal News
Three weeks before his scheduled retirement from the federal bench, Chief Judge Sean Cox suffered a setback that he knew was coming and yet tried to brace himself from its finality.
On July 7, at an assisted living facility in metro Detroit, Cox was at the bedside of his father when the 97-year-old family patriarch passed away after being in declining health for several years.
The departed, John Patrick Cox, was a forceful presence in the family, a man who “lived a long and extraordinary life,” according to the obituary that was written largely by his son, former Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, working in important contributions from his two brothers, Sean and Wayne County Circuit Judge Kevin Cox.
One anecdotal story “tells it all,” the former Attorney General wrote in the obituary.
“On his 93rd birthday, John was in isolation in his assisted living room due to the COVID mandate. His wife Rita was in a different room on the same floor but had not seen him in weeks as she was locked down too. When one of his sons called to say ‘Happy Birthday’ and wondered whether John was down about being isolated on his birthday, John responded, ‘Michael, don’t worry about me.
The Nazis tried bombing my neighborhood in 1940 and 10 years later the Chinese Communists shot at me in Korea, so this isn’t so bad. Plus, one of the girls who dropped off my food plate said she would get me a beer!’”
His upbeat outlook on life defied conventional wisdom, as he was raised in a family of limited means in Parkhead on the east end of Glasgow, Scotland.
“Parkhead was a primarily Irish Catholic community of laborers recruited to work in the forge works of Parkhead that fed Glasgow’s shipbuilding industry,” according to Mr. Cox’s obituary. “Catholics like John’s parents lived day-to-day as itinerant construction laborers or working in the fish markets or hustlers or joined the British Army. In the 1930s, Glasgow was the poorest city in Western Europe, but John and his family had faith in each other and their Catholicism.
“John left school when he was 13 at the beginning of World War II. He joined the carpenters’ guild and became a journeyman carpenter. As a 17-year-old at the end of World War II, John began several years of traveling from one English city to another working on rebuilding bombed-out buildings, while trying to figure out how to get to America. Toward the end of 1948, he was able to immigrate to Toronto – one step closer to Detroit ‘where the streets were paved with gold, the land of milk and honey,’ he used to say.
“As part of that process, he took a bus to Sarnia, walked across the Blue Water Bridge, and then hitchhiked to Detroit to meet his sponsor. By the beginning of 1950, he was admitted and established a new life in America. But there was a hitch: a few months later, the Korean War began, and he was drafted. Faced with the choice between going to war, to stay in America or going home, he chose war to obtain a new life in America. He spent a year in Korea, running a machine gun squad as an Army staff sergeant, enduring heavy combat that he did not talk about until he was in his 70s, and ended up being sworn in as a citizen by the end of the war. He literally fought his way into America.”
By doggedly chasing the sometimes elusive “American dream,” John had the good fortune of meeting the “love of his life,” Rita, at an Irish social club. The couple began raising a family of three sons, as John went from being a union carpenter with Detroit Public Schools to a white-collar civil engineer with Ford Motor Co. after obtaining a degree from Lawrence Tech.
“His work was motivated by his love of his family,” according to his obituary. “He simply did not know anything different. He made sure that if nothing else his kids learned how to work. And learned loyalty to the family. And to stand up for your family and do what you think is right.
“At the end of his life, John could not walk, and sometimes struggled to say what he wanted to say, but each day he showed his love for his wife and kids and grandkids by his simple will to live – to live each day as best one can.”
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