sassafras creek

The Brooks house: 

This is as much as I know about the Brooks house so far.  It was built in 1850 by a free black man named Etienne Cashmere.  Like so many of the folks in Ste. Genevieve at the time, Mr. Cashmere was of mixed race (French and African American).  I’m Missing the history from 1850-1890 

so that’s where we’ll pick it up.  Mr. Bill Brooks was born around 1893 in Ste. Genevieve, Mo.  He was at the right age to serve his country during WW I (The Great War).  His unit was in combat in France which was highly unusual for that time.  Colored troops were usually relegated to the service areas of the military, such as cooks, etc.  Mr. Brook’s unit saw heavy combat and he came home highly decorated.  He married a young lady named Johanna McNabb and they had three sons.  Mrs Brooks was very well educated and was a college professor at Harris-Stowe University in St. Louis, Mo.  She also taught the black children of Ste. Genevieve in this house and at the little black school on the other end of town.  She decided to go to nursing school in St. Louis and was tragically killed in a car accident on her way home one night.  Mr. Brooks never remarried and was left with three small sons to raise on his own.  They were aged six, four and two at the time of her death.  Education was very important to the Brooks family, but they could only attend school to the eighth grade in St. Genevieve due to segregation.  When it was time to go to high school, Mr. Brooks put the boys on a Greyhound bus every morning and sent them to Festus, Mo., 35 miles north of Ste. Genevieve where they attended the black high school. Wanting to achieve more, they all entered the military to get college educations through the GI bill.  The oldest son, Bill Jr. became the Vice President of GM in Detroit and was also appointed as Assistant Secretary of Labor under President George H.W. Bush.  The middle son Sydney was great at Football and went to USC where he mentored a young player named O.J.Simpson.  O.J. named his first born daughter “Sydney Brook” after his mentor.  Youngest son Jack joined the Air Force and worked at the Pentagon for a time before returning to St. Louis to work for McDonnell Douglas.  The neatest thing is my small connection to this wonderful family.  I went to a small, private school in Festus and we needed a gym facility for our sports programs.  My school bought the old high school for colored students and I was watching games and doing high school plays in the same building these boys attended school. So I call the Brooks lHouse my “miracle” and I am so honored to have played a small part in saving this historic home.