Marion Brooks

During World War II, the people at the Red Cross office on North Kirkwood Road "refused to permit me to make bandages for the war injured. I was directed to volunteer at the Red Cross office in St. Louis; Mrs. Brooks wrote. She graduated from what is now HarrisStowe State University and Washington University. In 1947, she got a job at a black elementary school in Kirkwood, where the superintendent called her a "troublemaker" after learning that her mother had asked for better educational opportunities for blacks. He t returned as a teacher and is now the principal Said Karen Eschemoeder, class of 1977: "You could talk to her about anything. And she would give you the straight scoop!' Mrs. Brooks was not happy when the district told her to retire at 70. She wrote President Ronald Reagan, pointing that he was even older than she and nobody was asking him retire. Retirement didn't mean slowing down. She continued teaching - on her porch, as a volunteer at Kirkwood and other schools, and at the he Juvenile Detention Center in St. Louis. In her profile, she concluded: "I believe that I bear the weight, the obligation and the opprtunity to lift and support others who are honestly working toward good for themselves!' . .