Once More from the Beginning
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Interestingly, this is a chain that cannot be broken; but it will be tried, twisted and stretched during our times of trouble. A link can be weak or strong. We will manifest both our strengths and our weakness to all who follow us. Our responsibility is to bring something good to the chain and not to shame, defile or weaken it!
Donald G. Brooks
Don Brooks began publishing his writings late in life. His first novel, Once More from the Beginning, was published in 2012. This family autobiography reveals their struggles, dysfunctions, persistence, and their survival. Don and Pat Brooks, lifelong residents of Warrick County, Indiana, have been married for 52 years. They have two children, Brent and Rebecca, and six grandchildren. From an early age Don wrote short stories and poems. As a 14-year-old freshman he produced and directed a class play. He credits his Aunt Anice as his inspiration. As children he and his eight siblings would sit spellbound on the back porch of their rural home as she spun stirring stories long into the night. “Would that I could return to that time, creating from my feelings the stories that my heart was so full of,” he comments. Don has written two novels and four short stories since retirement. His genre is Family and History. Every family has a story. It matters little its shape, size or color. It’s theirs and deserves to be shared. Don has proven it true.
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Once More from the Beginning - Donald G. Brooks
Once more, from the Beginning
Image387.JPGImage396.JPGAuthorHouse™
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.authorhouse.com
Phone: 1-800-839-8640
© 2012 Donald G. Brooks. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
Published by AuthorHouse 03/15/2012
ISBN: 978-1-4685-6070-1 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4685-6068-8 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-4685-6069-5 (e)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012904141
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only. Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
CONTENTS
DEDICATION
PREFACE
PART I
Our Ancestors
FAMILY ANCESTRY FROM 1710-1908
THOMAS BROOKS JR.
THOMAS BROOKS III
THOMAS BROOKS IV
CAPTAIN WILLIAM BROOKS
WILLIAM MARION BROOKS
BENJAMIN O. BROOKS
JAMES HARDIN JIM
BROOKS
TOPOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION OWEN TOWNSHIP
HART TOWNSHIP
WARRICK COUNTY (INDIANA) FAMILY RECORDS
PART II
My Parents,-the Early Years
GILBERT WHEELER BROOKS
GILBERT WHEELER BROOKS-DETAILED HISTORY
GILBERT AND HELEN-MARRIAGE
PART III
Our Family-the Early Years 1940-1945
DONALD GILBERT BROOKS
JUDITH ALBERTA BROOKS
LINDA THORA BROOKS
1946-1950
JOAN DARLINE (BROOKS) TEAL
JAMES WAYNE BROOKS
BRENDA JANE (BROOKS) SMITH
1951-1953
THOMAS DAVID BROOKS
THE COMING OF PRIDE AND PRESTIGE
FOR AN 11 YEAR OLD-OUR NEW CAR
1954-1957
CAROL ELLEN (BROOKS) FOUTS
KAREN KAY (BROOKS) SPRADLIN
1958-1961
PART IV
Our Family-the Later Years
1962-1965
1966-1969
PART V
Our Family-the New Generation
1970-1989
PART VI
The Empty Nest
Years
1990-1999
2000-2009
PART VII
Sibling Biographies
PART VIII
The Future …
PART IX
Summation
PART X
To the Generations Following Us…
To the Family and Descendents of the Brooks Clan
TO OUR YOUNG WOMEN
CONCLUSIONS FOR BOTH
Owen & Hart Township Maps
Image404.JPGFamilies are like trees-their many branches spiraling outwardly in various separate directions, each one looking for the light and space to grow. Yet all the branches’ roots are the same and universal to all that follow.
This book has been developed for the "branches" of our family for a three-fold purpose{
• To allow them to see and understand why we are and who we are
• To help them discovee the greater sense of purpose for their own lives
• To teach them that, without exception, we are all designed to honor our Creator in this life.
Image419.JPGThe Brooks Coat of Arms
Motto
By Persevering
DEDICATION
This work is dedicated to Pat, Rebecca and Brent Brooks. Without their loyalty, devotion and especially their love, I could not have attained to or become the person I am today. Who am I today? We must let history judge that by the lives that follow mine….those of my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. What they do with the opportunities given them will testify to my success.
Pat, Rebecca and Brent have taught me much over the years we have shared. How interesting it is that by my late teens or perhaps mid-twenties, I believed I had learned to master life. But I realized much later that it isn’t until one passes through many phases of life’s journey that one becomes more balanced and can truly say, I understand.
Some days the classroom
of my life has been more difficult than others. Some days it seemed I was losing ground rather moving forward. Sometimes I felt strong, but mostly I knew how weak I really was. I often felt my patience was being tested, only to realize that it was, instead, I who was testing my family’s patience.
This work is dedicated to my children because I hope it will help them with a better grasp of what life is about. I also hope this book will bring them understanding of their roots,
if only for the most recent 300 years. Life is by no means easy, as they can already attest too.
This work is dedicated to Pat because, knowing from the beginning I was very imperfect, she took it upon herself to help me. And she never gave up!
People often ask, What is the meaning of life?
And many have answered that question well. But I want to say it once more, my way: It is all about making the trip in a God-honoring fashion. No more, no less! It’s just that simple! Much of the time we think there has to be some very special reason we are here-because we are so significant! That’s nonsense. We are here only because He wishes us to be. Isn’t that enough? I think so.
All those who came and went before us are a reminder that we only pass this way once and very quickly at that. As difficult as it may be, we must embrace the trust placed within us. Each day we must, in faith, give back to our family and to humanity the best we can. Oh, I know some days are lost and we fail. I know also that the winds of life shift. But faith compels us to live confidently in times of uncertainty.
I am assured that, with courage, we are charged to bring light into an otherwise dark, dark world. This is our purpose! This is our challenge. This is our quest. To give up or to give in to the whims of our carnal nature we cannot do! We were born to win, and win we shall.
Image428.PNGPREFACE
To say that what I have to share is important is not true in the greatest sense. However, the past did result in who I am, as it does for each of us. Yet, in the big picture, it’s not all that significant. But who we are-a person, a soul-is truly a part of something much bigger than ourselves. Being that part makes us significant. It makes each one of us so very important, important beyond our finite imagination!
Individually, we are about as significant as a grain of sand on the world’s beaches. Still, we are created and, as such, our being is a part of a magnificent larger creation. We are, therefore, of tremendous value to our Creator. Out of that value or relationship within creation, we must truly search for our individual purpose. For all of us, the quicker we find that purpose and assume responsibility for it, the better. From that worth, we are able to give back-which is the highest level of humanness and of purposeful living. Why am I reciting this? It is to demonstrate that from nothingness we find ourselves. Outside our will, we are woven into the mosaic of humanity. So then we must affirm the value of every life, of every family member, as a part of the Creator’s plan.
Perception
comes from our experience. The experiences in the heart of a thing beg input. It’s a need to understand why to everything around us-even why the question why itself is significant! Without the answer, something is missing. We want to know a reason and especially the reason, for our being here.
The child asks its mother, Why?
Mommy answers. Then the question comes again, But why?
Soon that is followed by another Why?
If there is no reason, then there isn’t likely to be an effort-no motivation.
This will finally result in the decay of the emotions and, subsequently, feelings such as caring and purposeful responses. We demand to know why! The image we share or give to others is based upon the perceptions we have experienced and the future of that person’s purpose. Only one source or basis for that concept exists, that real truth is pure!
No one in mankind’s recorded history or from any source outside that history has delivered truth that is pure, fair or perfect for humankind other than the inspired writers. They, referred to as ancient of days,
were mature and experienced by reason of living. They observed the first humanness and were inspired by it. That inspiration, coupled with the inspiration of the Creator-God, helped them produce thousands of pages of material. Those writers provided us with knowledge about what works and what doesn’t-hence Truth.
Human nature never changes-never. Its characteristics, once discovered and identified, have shown themselves to be timeless. The old axiom about recreating the wheel is so apropos. Many wheels
have been discovered, but none has ever been re-created. These are the truths
that have existed thousands upon thousands of years.
Humanists tell us that the newly formed brain, with stimulus will always react the same way. It is true that from generation to generation, we can predict outcomes when certain stimuli are applied. The nature of the new brain is designed to function in specific ways (in the absence of defects). However humanists refuse to accept that the mind’s design is God created with His rules, not ours
. Each generation has to rediscover it either by experience or training. Rediscovering it through experience is a painful approach. As an old saying goes: Those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. Sadly, most repeat the past over and over, to their loss.
Each ungodly generation seemingly thinks it has to re-invent or re-create the wheel. It’s as if humanity thinks itself a god, who can improve upon the Creator’s work.
What a curious thing is this small, irrepressible element within us that persists, telling us we can do better than God!
Until we are able to yield to Him, we cannot experience spiritual growth. Without that, we become unteachable, doomed to repeat the same errors. We become damaged, thrown upon the trash heap of ruined and wasted lives simply because we refuse to understand, that He rules and not us!
Ethical concepts don’t change. Spiritual laws are immutable. We, created man, must adapt to them. If not, the laws will break us into pieces so badly that our attempts at putting meaningful lives back together again will be almost impossible. And we will continue to produce offspring doomed to also repeat the endless cycle.
Are we doomed because we can’t or won’t come to terms with Truth? Without adherence to Truth, will we forever cast future generations of children upon the boulders of a wasteland? What madness! How can we do the same things over and over, generation to generation, and expect different results? It’s God-less insanity. To me, this could be the flaw-the missing puzzle piece-in our natures that is associated with the fall.
Is it the puzzle part that is missing in each of us? Without that puzzle part we are all doomed to err and then repeat our errors again? Paul, a theologian from 2000 years ago wrote of our carnal condition. He said, Oh wretched man that I am! Who can deliver me from this body of death?
The roots of our present day family, the Brookses, originated thousands of years ago. More significant to us are the recent ancestors we can identify. parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents. Their lives had input into what makes us who we are today.
In my simple genealogy study, I found some members of our family from the past 300 or so years. They are the most recent ancestors, the ones who brought us to our modern day family. Seeing how they spanned their time periods helps us grasp the briefness of our own space on the stage of life. This should cause us to appreciate how quickly we will also pass from this platform called life
.
The significance of what we do or what we fail to do with our children today will affect them tomorrow…and their children in the days to follow. We must repress the feelings of I
, me
and my
. Feelings are common to all mammals. The ability to evaluate our feelings and to make informed decisions
is available only to humans. One of the strongest of feelings is the need to protect our self. As we reach the time of child bearing, we must shift gears and come to terms with the needs of our offspring, first. As a recent author so aptly said, It’s not about us
-and it truly is not!
PART I
Our Ancestors
Image443.PNGFAMILY ANCESTRY FROM 1710-1908
I want readers to be able to easily identify the chain of our paternal family members. For that purpose, I have emboldened and italicized this text’s first mention of the names of our family’s succeeding bloodline.
Thomas Brooks Sr. was reportedly born in 1710, likely in Burlington, New Jersey. Quakers incorporated Burlington-the county seat of Burlington County-on October 24, 1693. So it is highly likely that Thomas Brooks Sr. was a Quaker. Burlington sits 15 miles northeast of Philadelphia, on the Delaware River.
The Indians by that time were resisting white settlers along the Eastern Seaboard. During Thomas’s early life, hostilities occurred between Native Americans and settlers in the Carolina territory just to the south. Following a massacre of settler families in that area, the Tuscarora Indian War began. It lasted from the fall 1711 to February 1715. During that conflict, in May 1712, the Province of Carolina was officially divided into North Carolina and South Carolina.
The Pennsylvania Assembly had just banned the import of slaves into that colony. Philadelphia became the central meeting place for all the territories. It was in 1714, tea was first introduced into the American Colonies and King George I had ascended to the English throne, succeeding Queen Anne.
No other information is available on Thomas Sr. other than that he was the father of-Thomas Brooks Jr.
THOMAS BROOKS JR.
Thomas Brooks Jr. was born in 1730 in Southampton, New Jersey. The next year, Benjamin Franklin founded the first American public library in Philadelphia. Thomas Jr. married Mary Blacknall, born in 1732 in Burlington, New Jersey.
Thomas Jr. and his young wife married in spring 1747. They left home shortly thereafter, travelling through Baltimore on their way to Winchester, Virginia. (Baltimore was founded in 1730 in the Maryland colony.) The move from New Jersey to Winchester, Fredrick County Virginia is about 180 miles southwest of Burlington, New Jersey.
During the late 1720s, the Governor of the Virginia territory offered 200,000 acres to families willing to settle in the Shenandoah Valley. The town of Winchester was laid out in half-acre lots in 1741. A good reason for Thomas and Mary’s move to Fredrick County could have been the offer of land grants.
George Washington was born two years after Thomas Jr., on February 22, 1732. They lived in adjoining counties in Virginia during their young adult years.
Thomas and Mary had one recorded child, a son. Thomas Brooks III who was born in 1747 in Winchester. When we do the math, Thomas Jr. became a parent at 17 and Mary at 15. One wonders if their parents and Thomas Sr. may have encouraged them to move to the new lands due to the pregnancy. Perhaps their families also had friends there who could help with a new start that would be better for the young couple.
In June 1732, Georgia became the 13th English colony. Benjamin Franklin, still in Philadelphia, published Poor Richard’s Almanac. This publication contained weather predictions, humor, proverbs, and epigrams. It sold nearly 10,000 copies each year from 1732 to 1757.
The English Parliament passed the Molasses Act, a not-so-sweet deal, in 1733. This was done to protect the English planters in the Caribbean from French and Dutch competition. It imposed heavy duties on molasses, rum and sugar imported from non-British islands in the Caribbean.
England declared war on Spain in 1739. As a result, hostilities broke out in America between Florida’s Spaniards and the colonists in Georgia and South Carolina. That same year, three separate violent uprisings by black slaves occurred in South Carolina. In 1740, fifty black slaves were hung in Charleston, South Carolina after plans for another revolt were revealed.
Other historical events during Thomas Jr’s life included the English Parliament passing the Iron Act in 1750 and the Currency Act in 1764. The former limited the growth of the iron industry in the American colonies to protect the English iron industry. The Currency Act prohibited the issuing of paper money by the New England colonies.
The French and Indian War erupted in 1754 as a result of disputes over land in the upper Ohio River Valley. In May, the then 22-year-old George Washington led a small group of American colonists to victory over the French. He then built Fort Necessity in the Ohio territory south of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Washington later was outnumbered by the French at that fort and had to surrender it. Since this was the principal route west into the Ohio territories, until the area was secured, families could not move freely on the Ohio River into Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and beyond.
In February 1755, England’s General Edward Braddock arrived in Virginia with two regiments of English troops. Braddock assumed the post of commander-in-chief of all English forces in America. That April, he and Lt. Col. George Washington set out with nearly 2,000 men to battle the French in the Ohio territory. The French, trying to establish holdings, had been encouraging the Indians to plunder the Colonists. The British and George Washington were promptly defeated. The next year England declared war on France. The colonies’ French and Indian conflict now more deeply divided the British and the French.
Benjamin Franklin, in July 1757, began a five-year stay in Great Britain as an ambassador for the colonies. The first Indian reservation in America was started the following year on 3,000 acres in New Jersey.
Over the next five years, the French, Indians and English continued to battle over rights to the territories. This French and Indian War ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1763. Under that treaty, France gave England all French territory east of the Mississippi River, except New Orleans. That same year the Spanish gave England east and west Florida in return for Cuba. By this time, the population of colonists in America had reached 1.5 million.
Mary and Thomas Jr. experienced the whole Revolutionary War, from beginning to end. Living where they did, close to the center of things during those years, they were no doubt participants in many ways.
Although unknown, the Brooks families appeared to be mostly farmers. Their migrations from New Jersey to Virginia, then later to Kentucky and eventually to Indiana were likely motivated, at least in part, for more or better farmlands.
Mary and Thomas Jr. died in Frederick County, Virginia. He died in 1786 and she on April 4, 1787.
Just barely three years after Mary’s death, Benjamin Franklin died on April 17, 1790, in Philadelphia at age 84. His funeral four days later drew over 20,000 mourners.
THOMAS BROOKS III
Thomas III, by then an adult, moved to Christ Church, Middlesex County, Virginia. There he met and married Margaret Beaman, born November 13, 1747. They made their home about a half-mile west of the Rappahannock River and about 150 miles southeast of Winchester, Virginia, his childhood home. They were married January 29, 1771.
Certainly, Thomas III, then age 24, was influenced by the Revolutionary War even more than his parents. In March 1774, an angry English Parliament enacted the first of a series of Coercive Acts (called Intolerable Acts by Americans) in response to the Boston Tea Party. The Boston Port Bill effectively shut down all commercial shipping in Boston Harbor until Massachusetts territory paid taxes owed on the tea dumped in the harbor and reimbursed East India Company for the tea’s loss.
June 1774 saw the English Parliament enact a new version of the 1765 Quartering Act. The revised version required all American colonies to house British troops in occupied houses, taverns and unoccupied buildings. From September 5th to October 26th of 1774, the First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia. Every colony was represented except Georgia. Patrick Henry, George Washington, John Adams, Sam Adams and John Hancock were among the 56 delegates present.
At that time, Thomas III would have been 27 and living about 100 miles southwest of Philadelphia.
It was August of 1781, while Thomas III and Margaret were living in Christ Church that General Gilbert La Fayette or better known as the Marquis de La Fayette, a 19 year old French General and aristocrat, herded Lord Charles Cornwallis and his English army southeast through Virginia, past Fredericksburg and Richmond into Middlesex and the surrounding counties of eastern Virginia. Surrounded, Cornwallis was held at bay between the Rappahannock and York Rivers until the French Navy, requested by La Fayette arrived. The French Navy prevented British ships from aiding or providing escape for Cornwallis. It was this campaign that turned the tide for the colonies. The colonies were now driving out the British.
One can only imagine what life was like for Thomas and Margaret that summer as the British controlled life in the eastern Virginia counties. No doubt in addition to other atrocities they were forced as well, to house British soldiers in their home in Christ Church, at a time when they had a young family of children ranging in ages from 1 to 10 years.
Two years later on February 4, 1783, when Thomas III was 36 and young Thomas Brooks IV was 10 years old, England officially declared an end to hostilities in America.
Thomas and Margaret’s children were: Ruth (1771-1837), Sarah (1771-1857), James (1772-1838), Margaret Elizabeth (1772-1857), Thomas IV (1773-1854), Rev. Thomas M. (1775-1839), Robert H. (1780-1847), Jesse (1784-1860) and Rebecca (1786-1860/1870).
It appears there were two sets of twins, Ruth and Sarah (1771), as well as James and Elizabeth, (1772).
THOMAS BROOKS IV
Thomas Brooks IV, born in 1773, married Mary (no maiden name recorded) in 1807, while continuing to reside in Virginia. Mary was born in 1782 in Virginia. They and their children moved in 1835 to Logan, Kentucky, in the northern Kentucky territories. Thomas IV was then 62 and Mary was 53. The trip likely took weeks and was a distance of nearly 800 miles. In all probability, they traveled to Pittsburgh, some 250 miles to the northwest. There they boarded a flatboat for the almost 600-mile, arduous trip down the Ohio River to a settlement called Owensboro, Kentucky. Owensboro had been first settled in 1797, 38 years earlier.
Both Thomas IV and Mary died in the town of Logan, Ohio County, Kentucky. He died August 29, 1854, and she passed away in September 1860.
Their children were: William M. Brooks (February 23, 1808), Phoebe (1810), Elizabeth (1812), Humphrey (1813), George (1815), Thomas (1817-1892), Philip (1818), Joseph (1822), twins Silas and Silisa (1825) and Caroline (1829).
CAPTAIN WILLIAM BROOKS
Captain William Brooks was born February 23, 1808, in Virginia. Mariah Frances Brown, his future wife, was born 1802. They were married December 27, 1831, in Caroline County, Virginia, just 10-15 miles south of present-day Fredericksburg, Virginia. They moved to Ohio County, Kentucky-about 30 miles south of today’s Owensboro-about 1835, bringing along his parents (Thomas IV and Mary). This shortly followed the death of William and Mariah’s infant, Martha, in 1834.
No information is available to explain why William was termed Captain.
He died January 28, 1884.
International Genealogical Index indicates William and Mariah had eight living children, including one male born 1846 in Kentucky.
No names are listed there except Mariah, who died April 11, 1858. Another information source says their children were: Margarette M. (Gaines) (October 28, 1831-May 7, 1904), Robert S. (November 12, 1832-1850), Martha (June 6, 1834-1834), William M. (February 16, 1836-March 24, 1913), Benjamin O. (February 4, 1839-December 5, 1932), Mary Catherine (January 28, 1841-April 21, 1880), Eldred Chiles (May 14, 1843-November 25, 1926), George (1847), Mariah Frances (July 13, 1848-1906) and James Hardin (August 3, 1850-September 14, 1920). William Marion (see William M.
above) was the first child of our family recorded to have been born in Kentucky, in Ohio County.
Three of the sons-William M., Benjamin O., and James Brooks-are those who we will follow more closely from this point forward. These boys, born in Kentucky, moved to Owen Township, Warrick County, Indiana, likely in the late 1850s.
WILLIAM MARION BROOKS
William Marion Brooks was born February 16, 1836. He married Suisen (Susan
on marriage license record) E. Pemberton in Warrick County on January 12, 1871. The couple purchased 40 acres from George Taylor on December 28, 1871. The plot was located in the southeast quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 15, Township 4 South and Range 7 West. The $1,000 William paid would amount to nearly $100,000 in 2011 dollars.
William also purchased the south half of the northwest quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 15, Township 4 South, and Range 7 West, consisting of 20 acres. He bought this from F. Starrabush for an undisclosed amount. William’s ground was about a quarter mile east of his brother James’ property and north of Barren Fork Road. Both properties faced Barren Fork Road. James’ acreage averaged about $40 an acre. If $40 an acre was the average price for road-front property, then perhaps William’s ground averaged $25 an acre for the whole 40 acres. The back acreage, amounting to 20 acres, may have been about $10 an acre, but we don’t