The sudden death of Melinda Cooper, longtime owner of the iconic Ocean Drive boutique Cooper & Co., has stunned her many island friends and customers. Cooper, 69, a leading figure in the fashion and nonprofit communities here for nearly four decades, died Oct. 9 after a fall in her home, according to her family. After earning a degree in fashion merchandising from Michigan State University, Cooper came to Vero from Rockford, Mich, in the early 1980s and was managing a boutique in the Village Shops when she met Richard Schaub, who had come here to join his brother, renowned architect Clem Schaub. “I would see this beautiful blonde woman driving this vintage gold Mercedes convertible and I would say, ‘Who is that person?’” Schaub recalls, adding that their first date was on Valentine’s Day. “From that and from that point on, it was just the two of us. That was it,” said Schaub, a real estate developer. After dating for nearly five years, traveling together and having “a blast,” the couple decided on a quick elopement. They were wed in an old cathedral in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and were married for 37 years. The couple lived in several Vero locations, including 20 years in a house they built in Windsor, and they also had a getaway apartment on Fifth Avenue in New York City across the street from St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The New York apartment offered both an escape and a convenient base for her fashion buying. Cooper had filed the paperwork to establish Cooper & Co. in December 1986. “We used to sit across the street at the Bobby’s when she was trying to decide whether to step up or step back in this new business venture. And she finally said, ‘This is it. Let’s pull the trigger.’ And she did,” said Schaub. To remarkable success. The business also generated a wide circle of friends. “She made so many friends so easily, and she kept them all so close. It was just something that came so natural to her. And of course, family was important; not only her family, but our extended family. Every one of them just adore Melinda,” said Schaub. “When people talked about going to the store, they called it Melinda’s instead of Cooper & Co. That store was her baby. I’m hearing more and more about her friends, and they all just loved her. They’re all shaken,” said Sally Rivero, Rick Schaub’s sister. “Her motto was that she loved making people look good, but more importantly, feel good. Her strength was putting outfits together, but her extra superpower was making people feel good and hear them come back after an event and tell her how great they felt in the outfit,” said Rivero. Karen Loeffler recalled working with Cooper in 2018 to launch Fashion Meets Art, a hugely profitable fundraiser for the Vero Beach Museum of Art. “We teamed up and took the museum by storm,” said Loeffler, who co-chaired the event with Cooper for five years, before turning it over to Gregory Allan Ness. Cooper and Loeffler first met through another highly successful fundraiser, the Blue Ribbon Fashion Show Luncheon benefiting the Hibiscus Children’s Center. Cooper & Co. was the sole boutique when she started the fashion show in 1999. Although other local shops joined in 2015, Cooper’s elegant evening wear was always featured during the show’s grand finale. “There are so many people in town who considered Melinda to be their best friend. She was a confidant who always kept your secrets to herself. She was the epitome of a good friend,” said Loeffler. “She was such a kind, kind, caring human being. It was always so much fun being with her; we talked about anything and everything. She was so pretty and always had a compliment or a kind word to say to someone,” said Diane Langevin, who first met her when Cooper presented a fashion show at a Designer Showcase House fundraiser. “I’ll never forget. We got chatting and I thought to myself, I think she’s going to be a really good friend. She was an incredible woman. She loved her store; she loved working. And all her clients were special to her,” said Langivin. “It was her business,” said Schaub. “It was 120 percent her success story. She was there like a six days a week. If the store was open, she was there. And she loved it.”