Ann Turner Cook

Gerber baby

Cook is the daughter of syndicated cartoonist Leslie Turner, who drew the comic strip Captain Easy for decades. Their neighbor was the artist Dorothy Hope Smith, who did a charcoal drawing of Ann when she was five months old. In 1928, when Gerber announced it was looking for baby images for its upcoming line of baby food, Smith's drawing was submitted and subsequently chosen. It was trademarked in 1931. The drawing of Ann Turner Cook has been used on all Gerber baby food packaging since.

Cook attended the University of South Florida and other post-secondary schools. She studied education and English journalism, she earned several degrees, including a master's degree in English Education. She is a sister in the sorority Pi Beta Phi.

Cook taught at Oak Hill elementary school in Florida, and then at Madison Junior High School, in Tampa, Florida. In 1966, she joined the English Department of Tampa's Hillsborough High School, where she taught literature and creative writing. Students there dedicated the 1978 Hilsborean school yearbook to Cook, who sponsored the book. In it, students described her as "a teacher who really communicates with the students" and who, "without any complaints . . . has stayed late, worked nights, and with quiet efficiency supported her staff in their monumental task".

In 1990, Cook appeared as a guest on To Tell The Truth in a one on one segment.

Novels

After retiring from teaching, Cook became a novelist. A member of the Mystery Writers of America, she is the author of the Brandy O'Bannon series of mystery novels set on Florida's Gulf Coast. The adventures of Florida reporter and amateur sleuth O'Bannon are detailed in Trace Their Shadows (2001) and Shadow over Cedar Key (2003).