Nettie
(Miner) Brooks
(1890-1975)
Annette 'Nettie' (Miner) Brooks was born on April 5, 1891 at Normalville, Fayette County, PA, the youngest child of Martin and Amanda (Williams) Miner. She was a school teacher in Fayette County for 45 years.
Nettie married Russell Ray Brooks (1887-1934), a World War I veteran and “popular motorman of the West Penn Railways Company,” the son of Walter Brooks. They had no children.
Nettie
received her teaching certificate at California Normal School (now California
University of Pennsylvania). She
taught in Perry, Springfield and Bullskin Townships for a total of 45 years, and
retired in 1960.
Seen here,
she stands in the back row at right with her 1926 Mill Run School class.
The photo has been published in the 1970 volume, A History of Mill Run,
and in a 1990 article in the Uniontown Herald-Standard.
In 1909, she and her sister Agnes witnessed the signing of an affidavit by their parents on behalf of their uncle, Perry Enos, who was trying to obtain an increase in his Civil War pension.
The Connellsville Daily Courier once recounted how Russell:
…entered the employ of the West Penn Railways Company in 1910 as a lineman and followed this occupation for seven years, enlisting in the Army during the World War. He was stationed in Rhode Island. Because of ill health, he was not sent overseas. Upon being discharged, [he] reentered the employ of the West Penn as a motorman, in 1919, and had been in continuous service ever since. [In 1934], he was holding down the post of conductor on the main line between Greensburg and Uniontown.
Russell
passed away at home on Jan. 24, 1934 after an illness of several months. He was
just age 46. He was laid to rest at the Normalville Cemetery.
In 1935, Nettie moved to Pennsville, Fayette County, where she resided for the remaining 40 years of her life. She was a member of the Normalville United Methodist Church.
On July 7, 1975, Nettie died at home at age 85. She was buried with her husband at the Normalville Cemetery.
Nettie
and Russell are named in the 1975 paperback book, Brooks Family History.
In 1994, a photograph of Nettie, shown with her 1912 class at the Hampton School, was published in the book, Yesteryear in Ohiopyle and Surrounding Communities, Vol. II, compiled by author Marci Lynn McGuinness.
Copyright © 2000, 2005 Mark A. Miner