Edgar Ernest Brooks, M. D.The town and community in which he had gained note as a successful physician and surgeon is also Dr. Brooks’ birthplace. He is one of the leading members of the medical fraternity of Cowley County and had now been in practice at Burden for nine years.
Dr. Brooks was born in that community August 1, 1884. He was one of a family of eleven children. This branch of the Brooks family came to America from England and were pioneers in the province of Pennsylvania. Dr. Brooks’ grandfather, John Brooks, was born about 1806. He spent the greater part of his life in Eastern Tennessee, in Grainger County, and though he was advanced in years at the time, he and his three sons, M. L, T. J. and A. P. Brooks, all fought with the Union army during the Civil war. They were residents of Eastern Tennessee, a district which was almost universally loyal to the Union. In 1881 John Brooks came out to Kansas with his five sons, the youngest of whom was Nathaniel Brooks, father of Dr. Brooks. He took up a claim and lived on it until his death at Burden about ten years later. John Brooks married Miss Sellers, a native of Tennessee, who died at Burden, Kansas, January 15, 1882.
Nathaniel Brooks was born in Grainger County, Tennessee, in 1846, and is now past the age of three score and ten, but still quite active as a farmer, his home being a mile north and one mile east of Burden. He was reared and married in his native county and spent all his career in agricnltural pursuits. Coming to Kansas in 1871, he homesteaded 160 acres and had since increased his farm to a half section. He was a man of very progressive type, and had always handled his farm enterprise on the diversified plan. For a number of years he did much to foster and improve the grade of Short-Horn cattle in his section. He is a republican, had been a deacon and active supporter of the Methodist Church for many years, and is afflliated with Clinton Lodge No. 233, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons, at Burden. Nathaniel Brooks married Margaret Helen Livingston, who was born in Grainger County, Tennessee, in 1848. A brief record of their eleven children is as follows: Elizabeth, a resident of Burden and widow of Ernest Hankins, who was a farmer; Laura, wife of A. M. Gibbons, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, now living at Lakin, Kansas; Lncy, wife of James Zimmerman, an automobile dealer at Garden City, Kansas; G. O., a hardware merchant at Burden; W. K., in the dry goods business at Burden; Charles, on the home farm; Harriet, unmarried and employed in a store at Burden, Kansas; Dr. Brooks, who was the eighth in this large family; V. L., a dentist at Caldwell, Kansas; Eva, a teacher at Spring Hill, Kansas; and Ruth, still at home with her parents.
Dr. Brooks after getting all the opportunities offered by the public schools at Burden, including the high school, from which he graduated in 1901, entered the Southwestern College at Winfield, Kansas, and completed the work of the sophomore year. With this preparation he taught school two years in Cowley County, and largely from his own earning paid his way through medical school. He took his medical work in the University Medical College of Kansas City, Missouri, where he was graduated M. D. in 1908. After six months of experience at Moline, Kansas, Dr. Brooks returned to his native village of Burden and rapidly built up a large medical and surgical practice and enjoys the thorough confidence and esteem of his large patronage. He is a member of the Cowley County and State Medical Societies and the American Medical Association, and with all the demands upon his time made by his practice he still finds time to keep in close touch with medical knowledge and is a constant student. His offices are on Main Street, over Henderson’s drug store, and he owned his residence on Oak Strect. Dr. Brooks is a republican, is a member and trustee of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and is a past noble grand of Burden Lodge No. 238, Independent Order Odd Fellows.
He was married at Winfield, Kansas, in 1912, to Miss Dulcie Hatfield, a native of Kansas and a daughter of T. J. and Martha (Dennis) Hatfield. Her parents reside at Burden, Mr. Hatfield being the Standard Oil Company’s local agent here. Dr. and Mrs. Brooks have too children, Kenneth, born August 24, 1914, and Elizabeth Glanara, born March 24, 1917.