NASHVILLE, Tenn. (TN Tribune) On Saturday, March 12, at 11 a.m. Congressman Jim Cooper wed Nashvillian Mary Falls at a small private ceremony at Christ the King Church on Belmont Avenue with their children present.
Rev. Dexter Brewer officiated. Cooper was widowed in February 2021, when his wife of 36 years, Martha, died after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s. Falls had been widowed three years earlier when her husband of 27 years, Naill, died of a rare neurological disorder. Each of the newlyweds has three adult children.
“I feel like the luckiest man in the world,” said Cooper, 67, “having been so happily married, and now having found the perfect partner for this stage of my life.” Cooper’s license plate on his Prius is a Radnor Lake tag that reads “LMW 1.” Falls, 56, said, “When you have experienced losses like we have, you learn to approach each day with gratitude and joy. This is an unexpected gift.”
Cooper recently announced that he would not be running for re-election to Congress.
“If the legislature had not chopped up Nashville into three different districts, I would have been running for re-election with Mary at my side,” Cooper said. “Now she and I will be pursuing new challenges, because I am not retiring, only relaunching.”
Cooper has served in Congress for 32 years, but he has also worked as a lawyer, investment banker, and adjunct professor at the Owen School of Management at Vanderbilt. Falls received her undergraduate and law degrees from Vanderbilt, and practiced law at the Nashville law firm of Sherrard & Roe.
