Margaret Janeen Cook, who passed away on Jan. 22, 2026, at age 91, was exactly the kind of neighbor everyone hopes to have. “Just a sweet southern lady,” recalls Jane Ista, who lived two doors down for 40 years. “She did everything with a smile.”
That generosity of spirit ran deep in Janeen’s family, extending back generations to the beginnings of her childhood home on Byrne Street, the historic Rolle House in Woodland Heights.
Margaret Janeen Cook (obituary photo)
For years, Janeen opened the home for the Woodland Heights Civic Association’s biennial home tours. She guided guests through the house, sharing family photographs and stories that traced both her family’s history and the home’s evolution.
The house itself has a love story at its foundation. Janeen’s grandfather, Rolle Painter, was a railroad man who came to Texas with the railroad, according to Janeen’s daughter Anna Lynne Smotherman. He’d met Janeen’s grandmother, Maggie, in Tennessee and brought her to Houston as his bride.
Smotherman said he transported cypress wood by rail, then floated it down White Oak Bayou and set it on that property in 1907. The house was completed in 1910, one of the first on the block. Today, the Rolle House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and still features its original blown glass windows.
In the years after the Spanish flu epidemic left many children orphaned, Maggie and Rolle opened their home for a number of years to children who’d lost their parents before another orphanage was built to house them.
Curb view of the historic Rolle House in Woodland Heights. (Photo from HAR.com)
“[Maggie] would take them to the parks and to church,” said Smotherman.
During a later home tour, Ista reports that one of those former orphans returned. “She said, ‘My sister and I were orphaned, and we grew up there.’ She couldn’t wait to see it again,” recalled Ista.
(Photo from HAR.com)
Janeen lived away from the Rolle House during her marriage but raised her family nearby for several years. When her mother fell ill in the 1990s, she returned to care for her and continued that tradition of opening her home to those in need.
This included cancer patients and their families who came to Houston for treatment at MD Anderson. “She let them stay there,” said Smotherman. “She took care of them. She had meals. She helped them get transportation to and from the hospital. All of those folks kept in touch with her over the years.”
Her hospitality extended throughout the Woodland Heights community. “Lots of people had weddings there,” Smotherman added. “People who maybe couldn’t afford to have a wedding somewhere like that.”
The library at the historic Rolle House. (Photo from HAR.com)
A lifelong member of Norhill Church of Christ, she invited the congregation to hold services in her front room when the church’s air conditioner went out. She regularly hosted home tour events and Lights in the Heights get-togethers. The 2018 home tour preview party at her home featured a “Bob the Builder” theme, complete with hors d’oeuvres, Latin jazz, and tours.
Community members remember her pearls, her Southern grace, and her excitement in sharing the Rolle House’s history with visitors.
(Photo from HAR.com)
The house was sold last spring to a young couple with children. “We were gratified to hear that it was a young couple with kids who bought it,” Ista said.
Janeen is survived by her daughters, along with numerous grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren. Her obituary captured her essence: “She had a witty sense of humor, gave wise counsel, and comforted family and strangers alike.”