Harold Brooks Gardner ’44

Brooks died June 17, 2004, after a brief illness. He was 80 and had lived with his wife, Maggie, many years in Orinda, Calif.

On doctors' orders, he was not allowed to attend our 60th reunion and this was a major disappointment to him and to us. He thought our 50th was "terrific!" Brooks peppered class secretaries with notes about classmates he'd seen, his work on alumni schools committees, the log cabin he and Maggie built in the foothills of the Sierras (made of "giant Lincoln Logs"), and their trips with their children by camper across the United States and later by themselves, using Elderhostel.

Brooks came to Princeton from New Rochelle [N.Y.] High School with Lew Doom, majored in engineering, and was a member of the freshman swimming squad and Cannon Club. He left Princeton in 1943 with the ROTC unit and was serving as an instructor at Fort Sill when he met Maggie, a Red Cross social worker, through Rob Carlisle. They married, with Bud Herbruck as best man, in 1945. After occupation service in the Philippines, he returned to graduate in 1947. His career was as a manufacturing engineer with Goodyear.

Our condolences go to Maggie and their sons, Harold "Chip" Brooks Jr. '69, Tom, and Don. Brooks was preceded in death by a daughter, Margaret Sheldon.

The Class of 1944