My father, James Warren Brooks, died nearly one month ago and I'm still consumed by the sorrow I am experiencing by his passing.
He spent his formative years on the farm near Elmodel and it was his intention to continue the family tradition of being a farmer, and had not the Korean War intervened during the last year of his time at the University of Georgia, Dad might have become a farmer. As it was, his brother, Roy Minter Brooks was drafted into the army and stationed in Louisiana and he wrote Dad advising him to enlist and not be drafted so that Dad could have a choice in what branch of military service for the duration of the war. Dad chose to enlist in the Air Force. He was sent to Texas for his basic training and there he entered into Officer Candidate School with the objective of becoming an officer in the United States Air Force. Because Dad's vision was impaired (meaning he was supposed to wear corrective lenses) he was disqualified from becoming a Air Force pilot and was trained to be a Radar Observer and was trained to fly as RO in fighter jets. On graduation of the Officer CandidateSchool where Dad had the highest marks of any candidate in the class, Dad was valedictorian of his graduating class. His parents and brother went to Texas to see Dad graduate an officer, Second Lieutenant, the first officer in his family in the military since the American Civil War (Pickens Tucker 1843-1864, was 1st Lt with the 24th SC Infantry--Pickens Tucker was the brother of Dad's great grandfather, Hamilton Butler Tuckcer (1842-1904).
Dad was stationed at an Air Force base in Pensacola, Florida where he received advanced training as a Radar Observer. After this he was sent to Selfridge Air Force base in Mount Clemens, Michigan as part of the 61st Fighter Interceptor Squadron. Here he met his future wife, Judith Leola Hackett, on a blind date, and when Judy went home after that first meeting she told people that she had met the man she would marry.
Dad married Mom on Saturday, 5 February 1955. They moved to Stephensville, Newfoundland, where Dad was stationed with the 61st FIS. Dad was honorably discharged from the Air Force later that year and he and Mom moved to Columbus Ohio where Dad attended Ohio State University to get his teaching certificate.
Once having the degree, Dad and Mom moved to Celina, Ohio where Dad would teach Agriculture for three years in the local high school. While in Celina, Dad and Mom welcomed Susan Dorothea Brooks and Beth Anne Brooks to their family. In 1959 Dad decided on a career change and went in to sales of agricultural goods to various graineries in Michigan and this prompted Mom and Dad to move to Battle Creek, Michigan in late 1959. Dad's mother, Ruth Brooks, on hearing that Dad was going into sales, cried "You're not going to become a peddlar, James?"
Dad worked in sales for a variety of companies in Michigan, including Monsanto Foods and Wayne and Feed. His territory included most of the Thumb of Michigan so he moved Mom, Susan, Beth Anne and myself to Saginaw in late 1961. Dad and Mom's last daughter, Jennifer Kathryn Brooks was born in Saginaw. Because of the territory Dad had to cover in his sales he moved the family to a farm he and Mom rented from the Harvey family in Lum, Michigan in 1965, where we lived until our final move to Imlay City in 1972.
Dad was good at selling agricultural products but he went through a series of other sales jobs in the mid-1960s. Finally in 1968 he went to work as a Life and Health Insurance agent for Woodmen Accident & Life Company, working out of an agency in Davison Michigan. Someone had convinced Dad to take the Life & Health Insurance Exam early in the 1960s and he passed it with flying colors (Dad always excelled in studies of any kind), but he delayed his entry into Life & Health until 1968 and as he told me years later when I was his secretary in the 1980s, this was the career move that changed his life.
Over his career as an Insurance agent, Dad worked for several companies, Woodmen Life above, New England Life Insurance Company, and in 1976 he relocated to an agency in Port Huron, called Moore & Povenz, Inc., where he would sell Life and Health insurance from several companies. Through Dad's successful career as an agent, he was able to put all his daughters through college and take Mom on several wonderful trips, including Puerto Rico, a cruise to the Bahamas, Hawaii, and England two different times.
