Rev. Frank Allard Brooks' Obituary
The Rev. Frank Allard Brooks was born June 12, 1928, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Edwin Miller Brooks (1878-1929) and Beatrice Allard Brooks (1893-1977). Edwin Miller Brooks was an attorney at law in Boston. The family resided in Wellesley, Massachusetts, until, after the death of his father in 1929, the family moved to Oxford, Ohio, where his mother became Professor of History and Literature of Religions at Western College for Women. He attended the McGuffey School in Oxford through the tenth grade and completed his high school work at Deerfield Academy in Deerfield, Massachusetts, in 1946. From 1946 to 1950 he was a student at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts, graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1950. From 1950 to 1953 he prepared for the ministry at Hartford Seminary Foundation in Hartford, Connecticut, taking his second year of seminary at Tübingen University in Germany as a World Council of Churches Exchange Student. After receiving his Master of Divinity (M.Div.) degree in 1953, he also did a year in the study of Philosophical Theology at the Yale University Divinity School.
Ordained a Presbyterian minister on May 29, 1953, at Memorial Presbyterian Church in Oxford, he was active in the ministry of what is now the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for almost 40 years, from 1954 to 1993. In Texas he served as pastor of the Presbyterian churches in Celina (1954-1956), Plano (1956-1962), Lampasas and Adamsville (both 1962-1968) and Brownfield (1968-1972). From 1972-1975 he simultaneously served as pastor of three churches in Missouri: Ebenezer Presbyterian Church and Greenfield United Methodist Church in Greenfield and Stockton Presbyterian Church, in Stockton. Returning to Texas in 1975, he was pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Breckenridge until 1981. His final pastorate was the First Presbyterian Church in Frederick, Oklahoma (1981-1993), from which he retired as Pastor Emeritus.
On February 2, 1957, he married Margaret Ellen Karlen, the love of his life. Their marriage would last for almost 63 years, until her death in 2019. To their union was born his son, Charles Edwin Brooks, and his daughter, Marietta Ada Brooks.
After his 1993 retirement to Carrollton, Texas, he served for a time as an English as a Second Language instructor, and also as a Parish Associate and Parish Visitor for a couple of churches. He was always very active in the Presbyteries in which he worked, serving for five years as National Missions Chair of Alamo Presbytery, as well as Moderator of Alamo Presbytery. He was a Commissioner to the General Assembly at Portland, Oregon, in 1967, and also was a commissioner to the 200th General Assembly at St. Louis, Missouri, in 1988.
He died in Plano, Texas on January 8, 2025, at the age of 96. He is survived by his two children and their spouses, three grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.
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