On July 9, 2015, Virginia Cook suffered a massive stroke that most feared might kill her or leave her incapacitated.
Even those who know this feisty, energetic Realtor whose name is on real estate signs all over town had serious doubts that she would make a real recovery.
Apparently, Cook didn’t get the memo.
I’ve known the 78-year-old, 5-foot-2-inch powerhouse since we traveled together in 1978 to North Brunswick, N.J., as part of the headquarters relocation of the Boy Scouts of America to Los Colinas.
For four decades, I’ve sought out her opinions on the residential real estate market and those who operate in it.
And I was among those who feared the worst for her.
We should have known better.
It’s been a rough and arduous road to recovery, and there’s still much left for her to regain. The stroke paralyzed her right side, and her speech is limited.
But after spending more than two tenacious years in rehab at Presbyterian Village North, Cook has moved back home, motors around in an SUV with a driver and shows up somewhere in the Virginia Cook six-office network every day.
She takes friends to dinner, pays with her credit card and figures a generous tip with ease.
She’s learning to write with her left hand.
Give her enough room, and she can do wheelies in her motorized wheelchair. She has no patience for people who try to slow her down.
“Based on the wardrobe I see her wearing, I think she’s doing a lot of shopping,” says her close friend and longtime business partner, Sheila Rice, who runs the brokerage company as its president.
Playing charades
Cook has difficulty stringing together more than a few words. But she can totally track conversations and makes her presence clearly known when she disagrees, using a hearty “No!” and wagging her left index finger.
“She can’t always tell you what she wants,” says Rice. “But she always understands what you’re saying and has an opinion on it. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with her mind.”
David Griffin, who merged his real estate company with Virginia Cook eight years ago, says Cook’s loss of her vocal skills is a great injustice.
“If I’d ever met a leader who was just superb with words and the way she could motivate people with a great sense of humor, it was Virginia,” he says. "She could speak extemporaneously brilliantly. Having been robbed of that, it’s been interesting to see how she’s coping. It’s almost like she plays charades with you because she acts out things so much. The longer you’re with her, the more you learn how to read everything.
“It takes skill from Virginia as well as the listener. But we can make decisions and plan strategy based upon that.”
‘Wonderful! Wonderful!’
I met Cook at the Virginia Cook Park Cities office on Sherry Lane. With office manager Sherri Baer Wilson acting as interpreter, Cook shared her struggles, triumphs and goals.
Cook, who is the company's chairman, and Baer Wilson have forged a special bond in the last three years, with the 64-year-old company vice president acting as Cook’s trusted lady-in-waiting.
“Virginia, correct me if I get anything wrong,” Baer Wilson says, as if Cook needs to be coached about that.
Cook’s favorite positives are “Wonderful! Wonderful!” and “Let’s go!” — accompanied with either a left-handed fist clench or a snap of her fingers.
She used both to describe how she felt when she finally was able to move back home a year ago.
Did she cry the first day back in the office?
Cook looks at me incredulously. “No! Never cry. Come on. Wonderful! Wonderful!”
“I don’t think she’s ever cried publicly,” says Rice in an interview after my meeting with Cook. “She’s gutted it out. Once she got her mind around the facts, she just moved forward.
“Virginia’s not like anybody I’ve ever known. She so smart. She’s so clever. She’s so witty. And she is so absolutely going to do it her way on things like this. That bullheadedness has helped her begin to rebuild her life.
“I do know this: Her spirit is very strong. You saw her, so you know. The girl is still there.”
Dumped in Preston Hollow
To understand why no one should have thought Cook was ever down for the count, you should know how Virginia Cook the Realtor and her company came to be.
Cook was a 20-year-old student at Southern Methodist University in 1960 when she decided to get her real estate license. Texas law in those days required that she get legal permission from her then husband, which she did.
Cook asked Ebby Halliday for a job. Ebby told her she only hired experienced agents and suggested she try another prominent realtor, Judge Fite.
On her first day as a real estate agent, Cook’s legendary boss drove to Preston Hollow, handed her a listing agreement, booted her out of his pickup and told her not to return to his Preston Center office until she had a home signed up.
"My car was still at the office, so I had to trudge back at the end of the unsuccessful day," she recalled in 2003.
She spent three frigid winter days knocking on doors before she found a recently widowed woman willing to entrust her with the sale of her Preston Hollow home.
It sold in less than a month, and Cook figured the job was a cinch.
"I was so young and had such great faith, but I didn't have the sense of a billy goat."
Of course, she did.
Over the next 39 years, Cook worked for others, including Fite, Paula Stringer Realtors and Henry S. Miller Co., where she built Miller’s residential real estate arm into a national player.
In 1999, she and Rice, who are the same age and had worked together for three decades, decided they had one more venture in them.
Next year will be their 20th year as business partners — a half-century as colleagues.
Rice has been a steadfast supporter of Cook and the rudder of the company throughout Cook’s ordeal.
The big secret
Cook had just celebrated her 75th birthday on June 19, 2015, and was preparing for hip replacement surgery when disaster struck.
She had a minor stroke at her home that landed her in the hospital and another minor stroke two days later, followed by the devastating blow the next week.
“All of a sudden, before she leaves for her hip replacement, she has this stroke,” says Baer Wilson. “We were all devastated because Virginia was always this picture of health.”
But friends had noticed that she’d been slightly off her game for several months before the stroke. In hindsight, they believe Cook ignored warning signs that something was dangerously wrong. But Cook has never been one to fess up to vulnerability, and it’s no secret that she’s doctor-averse.
“Virginia always forges ahead and ignores anything she doesn’t want to hear,” says Rice.
Cook spent the month after her stroke incognito at Zale Lipshy University Hospital. The last thing she wanted was for people to know she was ill.
Cook rolls her eyes at this.
Could she speak after the stroke?
“Little bit, little bit,” Cook says.
Cook avoided the office while she tried to process what had happened to her.
Not everyone at the company knew about the stroke, but plenty did, says Rice.
Yet word didn’t get out until three months later, when Cook made her first public appearance to accept Les Femmes du Monde’s award as woman of the year.
Word spread like wildfire.
The next year was particularly difficult for both Cook and Rice, businesswise and emotionally.
“But in [June] 2017, I had a party for Virginia’s birthday at my house, and she was herself again,” says Rice. “It was like she’d stepped through a door. Since then, she’s continued to make amazing progress.”
Home again
There have been several catalysts to Cook’s recovery.
Cook made the staff at Presbyterian Village explain each of her medications, how they interacted with each other and what the side effects were.
“She made some conscious decisions on some pills that she should not take,” says Baer Wilson, as Cook concurs with a nod. “They talk about how they’ll over-medicate patients. But Virginia took control of that. She got rid of the ones that made her drowsy.”
Cook started jin shin jyutsu therapeutic acupressure at the recommendation of Griffin, whose mother had been helped by therapist Liz Mosesman after her stroke some years back.
“One of the things that I love about Virginia is she is open to life and things that may not make immediate logical sense,” says Griffin, who started his real estate career with Cook at Henry S. Miller in the late 1970s. “She and Liz just connected.”
Griffin began to have dreams a month or so after Cook’s strokes in which she was back giving speeches. “So while I was obviously very concerned, something in my subconscious was always thinking that she would come back. I never thought the book had been written on Virginia Cook knowing of her strong life force and her will.”
Her motorized wheelchair and ramp-equipped SUV have freed Cook in both mobility and spirit.
But more than anything, Cook’s strongest boost came when she moved back into her retrofitted Highland Park home where she’s lived for 36 years.
“I’ve never seen anybody any happier, deliriously so,” says Rice, who oversaw the remodeling. “True joy like you rarely see.”
More to recoup
Cook remains a voracious reader of cookbooks, business and inspirational books. One of her latest reads is Cutter Frisco: Growing Up on the Original Southfork Ranch by Douglas Box.
Where does she like to entertain?
“Al’s,” Cook says firmly, referring to Al Biernat’s on Oak Lawn.
“She loves Cafe Pacific’s oriental chicken salad,” adds Baer Wilson. “She also likes Royal China.”
So what does Cook hope to achieve next?
“You know, you know,” she prods Baer Wilson.
Baer Wilson motions to Cook’s limp right arm. “She’s doing some different treatments trying to gain movement. We can see Virginia eventually using a walker to take steps. Having seen how much Virginia has improved, I have full reason to believe.”
Cook gives another affirmative head nod.
She continues extensive physical and speech therapy and is working hard to improve writing with her left hand and her iPad skills.
Denaige Pizzutello, who is in charge of the company’s training programs, is in the office as Cook wheels around from cubicle to cubicle to greet the troops.
“She’s one of the greats like Ebby Halliday,” Pizzutello says. “We’re so happy to have her back. She just keeps getting better and better.”
Cook’s health and the ever-shrinking number of small local independent real estate brokerages brings up the question of whether the two partners intend to sell.
“We have no plans at this point,” says Rice. “If the perfect fit were to come along, maybe.
But our people should feel secure that we’re not out trying to get out and sell it. We’re not.”
AT A GLANCE: Virginia Cook Realtors
Founded: 1999
Ownership: Virginia Cook and Sheila Rice
Number of offices: Six, including David Griffin & Co.
Employees: 300 agents and staff
SOURCE: Virginia Cook Realtors
