Gertrude Cox organized and directed several agencies dedicated to research and teaching in statistics. "By her missionary zeal, her organizational ability and her appreciation of the need for a practical approach to the statistical needs of agricultural, biological and medical research workers she did much to counter the confused mass of theory emanating from mathematical statisticians, particularly in the United States, who had little contact with scientific research," eulogized Frank Yates in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society.

Cox was born on a farm near Dayton, Iowa, on January 13, 1900, to John William Allen and Emmaline (Maddy) Cox. After graduating from Perry (Iowa) High School in 1918, she devoted several years to social service and training for the role of deaconess in the Methodist Episcopal Church. She spent part of that time caring for children in a Montana orphanage.

In 1925, in preparation for advancement to superintendent of the orphanage...