My great grandfather, Zachariah Brooks (name originally Bricks (German)) married Sarah McGill in Tennessee, date unknown.  To this union was born Jessee, John, Martha (Brooks Walker), James, George Washington (my grandfather) and Christopher.  My grandfather, George Washington Brooks, was born in Alabama, January 1, 1840, married Martha Parlee Neville (born on August 25, 1843), daughter of Alexander and Elizabeth Paralee Neville, in Mt. Pleasant, Titus County, Texas, June 11, 1860.  She was born near Nashville, Tennessee.  They settled in Hood County where grandfather joined the Texas Rangers Service.  She lived there (where seven of the ten children were born) throughout the Civil War and until 1869. He was stationed at various times at Ft. Griffin, Ft. Chadbourne and at Camp Colorado in Coleman County.  One of his Colonels was J. E. McCord of Coleman.  He was one of several Texas Rangers who established the camp from which the town of Ranger took its name.  George Washington and his family, in 1879, moved to Coleman County, settling east of Santa Anna Mountains on a tract of land later known as Austin farm.  They moved to Coleman ten years later, where he bought a hotel on Commercial.  To this union was born ten children. John William, 1867 (died at an early age); twins, Sarah Isabelle and Nancy Elizabeth, 1869; Louis Napoleon ("'Bunk"'), 1871; Theodocie, 1873-1950, buried Coleman, never married; Eddie Mace ("'Tood"'), 1876; Rudolph (''Hood"') 1877; James Claude, 1879; Bessie Maude, 1881 and Joseph Zachariah, 1883.  Grandfather George died April 10, 1912, buried in Coleman.  Grandmother died in 1924, buried beside Grandfather.  Our family lived across the street from Grandmother until she was 80.  She had a cow, chickens and garden on East Mesquite Street.  Six of the nine children lived out their lives in Coleman.  At a period in the 1920's when grown children and little ones, too, lived at home in some of the families, there were seventeen Brooks cousins in Coleman.

     (1) Aunt Belle (1869-1957, buried in Coleman), married Seth Bradner in 1889, and they had one son, Ray.  Ray and his wife, Dena, had a little son, Dean (see Dodds).  Both mother and child burned to death in a hotel fire in Brownwood, when I was young.  Ray died soon after.

     (2) Aunt Nannie (1869-1962, buried Coleman) married Jim Dodd, who was killed in a hunting accident, September 4, 1916.  They had three girls and one son, James Cecil, born November 4, 1906, who still resides in the old homeplace on San Saba Street. He painted signs for a living.  The girls were Clarance, October 31, 1899 (now deceased), who married Tom Jamison (see T. E. Jamison); Grace, October 19, 1901, married Charles Pollard of Pennsylvania, had a son, Frank; and Ruby, June 13, 1904 who married Wilburn Lester, and now lives in Pflugerville.

     (3) Uncle "Bunk, L. N., lived in Post.  He had three boys and one girl, Pauline, Louie, Henry, and Walter.

     (4) Theodocie never married.

     (5) Eddie Mace, Uncle "Tood," married a lovely Swedish lady, Hannah, and had six children (see Peter-son).

     (6) My dad, Rudolph "Hood,"' married Lula Kizar Frier, daughter of Isom Conway and Mary (Hastings) Frier in Stephenville, in 1901.  To this union were born Jack Ralph, 1903 (died in 1976); Homer, 1904 (died 1957); 1907 (died 1909); Ollie, 1908 (died 1912); Joe Vernon, 1913; Asa Pearl, 1915; Gladys Lucille, 1917.  Dad built our home in 1926 on Austin Street, at the foot of the hill on the north side.  Lula was born June 26, 1882 and died May, 1937, buried in Coleman.  Dad married Hattie McClure a year later.  He died in October, 1944, buried at Coleman.  Jack married Faye Parker of Coleman, had no children, and divorced after six years.  He lived in Fort Worth from 1940 until his death, buried at Coleman.  Homer married Alene Ellis of Stephenville, a school teacher in Coleman.  They had two sons, Don and Bob.  They moved to California when the boys were small, lived in Long Beach; Alene still resides there.  Joe worked in San Angelo and married Dorris Taylor and moved to California.  They had three children, Lynn Ann, 1945, Joe V., Jr., 1952, died when one week old; Jackie Lu, 1953.  Asa Pearl married D. D. Griffith of Santa Anna (see Joe Griffith).  They divorced in 1969.  Asa Pearl married Cecil J. Suttle of Waco in 1971, lives in Fort Worth.  Gladys Lucille married Ray Horton of Santa Anna in 1935.  They had three children: Eldon Ray, died with pneumonia when one month old, buried in Santa Anna; Marlene, born in 1937, moved to California when Marlene was small; Tommy Joe, born in 1943. Gladys divorced Ray Horton and married Frank O'Reilly, who died about 1969; she lives in Las Vegas, Nevada.

     (7) James Claude married, no children.  He lived in Wichita Falls until his death.

     (8) Aunt Bess married Gene Love, they had no children (see William F. Kegans).  They ran City Meat Market on Commercial Avenue in Coleman.  My dad worked there until he put in a market in back of Walthall and Griffith Grocery on the east side of Commercial.  He ran it until 1932, when asthma forced him outside to work for Jamison and Pollard (husbands of Clarance and Grace Dodd), pumping oil wells.  He worked there several years, then went to Cross Plains to pump wells for his youngest brother.

     (9) Joe Z married Annie Mae from Oklahoma.  They adopted a girl naming her Annie Mae.  Joe lived his life out in Coleman and is buried here.  Annie Mae moved to Mexia, where her daughter and her husband, Bill Murphy, lived. Annie Mae died in 1975.