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Hollis Duane Brooks |
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December 17, 1923 ~ October 14, 2015 |
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October 19, 2015 |
 Hollis
Duane Brooks died peacefully in his sleep at
home with his wife on October 14, 2015. Hollis,
who in two months would have been 92, had been
hospitalized with flu and severe heart failure
before being told his illness was terminal and
being placed under Hospice care. Services will
be held on Wednesday, October 21, 2015 at 2:00
p.m. at the Copeland Cemetery with interment to
follow.
Characteristically, just last year, Hollis cut
all the trees and split them up for the couple’s
firewood, an example of physical vitality that
Hollis exhibited all of his life. Born to Clyde
Eugene Brooks and Laura Joyce (Fleener) Brooks
on December 17, 1923 in Minnesota, Hollis had
two sisters, Shirley and Cora. Clyde Brooks
worked on President Hoover’s infrastructure
projects and later bought a farm in Michigan
where Hollis learned many of his farming skills.
At the age of 19, after graduating from
Schoolcraft High School in Michigan, and joining
the Army to fight in World War II, Hollis
trained as Pack Artillery Specialist with the
12-mule pack team that was to join Merrill’s
Marauders in India. Enroute to that engagement,
Hollis’s unit was informed that all of Merrill’s
men had been massacred by the Japanese.
Asked what he did for the Army after the
massacre ended the Army’s use for his unit,
Hollis used to say, “I fought mosquitos,”
because he retrained and became a mess tent cook
for 2,500 soldiers. He thought that was pretty
funny because he was a farm boy and with two
sisters at home, he said, he’d never even
learned to boil water.
During his three years in India, Hollis had many
adventures he used to share with his wife and
friends, including the time he was driving a
supply truck as a huge crowd listening to
Mahatma Gandhi blocked the road.
Among his many awards for service during the war
are a ribbon from the China/Burma/India
campaign, a medal for taking part in the World
War II Army of Occupation, medals from the
American Campaign, and European/African/Middle
Eastern Campaign, and the Good Conduct medal.
“We had such peace in our home because Hollis
had such a love in his heart for everyone just
as Jesus taught us,” according to his wife,
Shirley Brooks. Hollis became a Christian as a
67-year old, she said, after he suddenly
surprised his first wife by asking if he could
come to church with her.
Jo Berteen, Hollis’ first wife, had been
covering him with her prayers since they had met
as 14-year olds when she was visiting her
grandfather at the next farm over from the
Brooks. While he was in the Army, Jo waited and
prayed, and the two wrote many letters to one
another until he got out and they married.
After discharge from the service, Hollis first
went back to help on the farm. Then he went to
work for Kalamazoo Stamping and Die, becoming a
die setter and the first man to run a hydroform
there, then becoming an inspector and finally a
supervisor. Three months before retiring after
40 years, in 1985, Hollis moved his wife and
their belongings to a piece of property in
Copeland they had heard about from their
daughter, Brenda Brooks, who already had moved
to Bonners Ferry. While he returned to work the
last few months in Michigan, Jo put a herd of
goats to work eating the brush down and she
milked them.
As Shirley explained this, she gestured around
the cozy, attractive cabin that she and Hollis
shared and said Jo Berteen created it all.
“Bitsy, the goat, and their Airedale dog would
sit nearby while she grazed a lot of goats,”
Shirley said. After a happy marriage lasting
more than 50 years, Jo Berteen passed away in
December of 1997, and Hollis buried her in the
Copeland Cemetery.
After Jo’s death, Hollis busied himself with the
Nazarene Church, going on a “Working Witness”
program to Honduras. He helped build a church
there for people he said were living in
cardboard boxes, but he told Shirley that the
people had “the greatest worship” he ever had
seen.
Although he wanted to stay in Honduras, he
returned to Bonners Ferry and volunteered not
only his time but also his amazing work ethic to
many people, local businesses and farms. He
truly gave anything he had to so many.
A love of animals probably did not begin for
Hollis when he worked with the mules in the
Army, but among those he and Shirley have added
to their spread are horses, from their first
foal in 2004, to as many as 40 at one point.
Shirley bought him their first Miniature
Dachshund, Lady, as a wedding present, and
during the years it was typical to find Hollis
in the evenings sitting in his easy chair
covered by Dachshunds.
Among his many hobbies was hunting, and he also
collected antlers. In 2010, he had two knee
replacements, and although he was 86 at the
time, Hollis recovered well and returned to his
farming chores.
When he was diagnosed with severe heart failure,
Hollis asked to die at home. After the ride home
by ambulance, Hollis was visibly relieved when
the ambulance doors were opened and he saw
Shirley waiting for him. Shirley said that
within just a few days, he shocked her and the
Hospice nurse when he suddenly left his
ventilator behind on the main floor of their
home and headed upstairs. Five days later, at
12:12 in the afternoon, he died in his own bed.
“Hollis loved the Lord with all his heart, and
he had nothing against anybody. He never worried
about yesterday and always hoped for tomorrow
being a great day,” Shirley said. “The years
with Hollis are the best of my life because he
truly shared with me.”
Hollis was preceded in death by his parents,
both of his sisters and his first wife. |
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