Both the second child and the second son of seven children born to Clarence and Audrey Brooks, John Samuel Brooks was born in Newport News ,Va. on April 7, 1945 - just one month before the final surrender of Germany in World War II.  Japan would surrender three months later.  He would become a true child of the post-war years.

He grew up in a time far removed from today - what we look back on now and perceive to have been a simpler and less pressured time - a time of unquestioned patriotism, economic booms and unlimited opportunity.  Television was in its infancy, telephones had party lines and community was still pretty much centered around neighborhoods and families.

Sammy began attending elementary school at the Morrison School, which would later become Warwick High School, before he was moved to Riverside Elementary.  He also attended Warwick Junior High, the precursor to Ferguson High School, and then graduated from Warwick High School having come full circle from where he began school.  He was raised in Temple Baptist Church and was baptized at fourteen.  An active scout he was a Cub Scout, a Boy Scout and an Explorer.  Along side his older brother Bobby, he earned the Boy Scout's God and Country Award.  A skinny kid, he was known by the nickname “Hambone”.

As a boy he personified a child of the fifties - bike riding, building tree forts and playing sandlot sports (55 years later his younger brother, Joe, still sports the scar and crooked tooth he got from Sammy as a result of one particularly rough tackle).  The family grew a large garden and Sammy served his time plowing, planting, hoeing and picking, learning a work ethic that would serve him well for the rest of his life.  Also earning the right to eat as many tomatoes – his favorite food – as he wanted.  As a young teenager, he had a morning route delivering the Daily Press by bicycle.  This would lead to several stories in family lore of the rainy mornings and the times he overslept that required his Mom and siblings to turn out and help deliver in order to get him to school on time.  Later, he and his brother Bobby worked for Sam Whitesell's Esso station on Jefferson Ave at Harpersville Road where they both honed a mutual interest in cars.  His first car was a 1959 Ford Fairlane. It would be replaced by an MG Midget which in turn gave way to his beloved 1964 cherry red Mustang convertible – his very first new car.  He would have other cars and trucks, but the Mustang was his one true love.

During his senior year in high school he began working with a construction company mostly doing landscape clearing and cleanup at night and on weekends.  He eventually learned how to run heavy equipment and settled into this as his career after a short stint making fiber for Dow Chemical.  He was a particularly talented bulldozer operator though he also worked with other equipment.  Over the years he worked with several different construction companies finally retiring as a supervisor with Branscome, Inc.  A lot of the major roads built in this area in the past 40 years have had his touch on them as well as a great many building sites.

Sammy, of course, came of age just as the draft for the Vietnam War was beginning to ramp up.  After talking with his parents, he chose to join the Army Reserve and served six years as a motor pool mechanic before being honorably discharged.  He led the way for Joe to later join the same reserve unit before electing to transfer to active duty.

In 1968 he met Diane Elkins while working for Dow Chemical.  Diane worked in the lab and coworkers of the two set them up for the Christmas dance that year. They were married in October of the following year.   Over the next thirty years they had three children John Jr,, Sherri and Daniel and built a home together.  Even though they eventually divorced, they remained good friends for the remainder of his life.

Later Sam met Rose Scott through his work in the construction industry.  They developed a special relationship that would span over 20 years and continue right through to the end.  Rose is also the custodian for Sammy's beloved dog Ben.  You only had to see the look on his face when he was interacting with Ben to know the love he had for him.

The center of his life was always family.  While he always cherished his parents, his wife and his brothers and sisters, his true devotion was to his children, grandchildren and his great-grandchild.  He was a great neighborhood dad.  His backyard had the skateboard ramp, his front yard the basketball goal.  Kids were welcome and knew it.  When his grandchildren came along he could always be counted on to have candy in his pocket for them and they always knew they were loved.  His great-grandchild, Vera, was only the latest apple of his eye and he loved to hold her and play with her.

Sammy was a quiet, thoughtful man and a wonderful person.  He will be missed, but we are all better for having had him in our lives.  And he leaves a legacy in the person of his descendents who are all better people for having had him as their example in how to live a life full of family, friends and love.