Great-grand-dad Cooper

What I found out or was told: Great-granddad Cooper was an Irish blacksmith who worked for the Yankee's during the civil war shooing their horses. One day they came upon an Native American Cree camp. One lady was working very hard and was not treated well. So Cooper took her back to Dayton, where she had eight children. It was always cozy in their home with the fire on for the blacksmithing. The first one to be born was our grandmother to be. At least that is what I could coble together or was hinted at by our mother. There must have been a Cooper too? But I wouldn't know how he would fit in... I think you know more about the family tree than I ever did. Our mother was full of secrets... She must have expected something else when she married our father John. She probably dreamed of an American kitchen and a washing machine or a real fridge and not a zinc tub with a block of ice. They lived with ten people then in a clap house, like the put on the reservations in Arizona: Too cold in winter, too hot in summer... They lived in there with ten people, plus me as a baby. When a nephew didn't do what she wanted she slapped him in the face. Aunt Louise remembers the incident clearly. It was probably that what made them leave. Dad had a good job with the railroad in Dayton. Louise never understood why he gave that up to leave Dayton. I seem to remember they went East, and ended up in Texas where fate did its work, for you as well as for me and our mother. I think our father has been a good father to Mark. He and my late husband Tony Mafia used to talk on the phone a lot. John always came across as caring, but after he and our mother split up, he too went through a rough spot for a while, till he found his way back to Dayton.  He remarried after a while and along came Mark. He writes, he has done a lot of linguistics at the university but except for his writing he didn't do much with his linguistics. No, that isn't true: he once gave me a language he had developed and which would come in handy in meeting aliens ; ).

PS: There should be a Gallagher somewhere. So maybe I am confusing the Cooper branch and the Gallaghers