Walter N. Brooks, Alleghany native, writes his life story

Walter Brooks says that writing his autobiography was a never-ending situation, with one memory often lending itself to recalling another.

"It's surprising how one memory leads to another when you get into writing an autobiography," the 80-year-old Brooks said in a Jan. 22 interview.

Brooks, who retired in 1995 from his most recent job, which he described as "my own business selling telephones and telephone equipment, based in Escondido, Calif.," has since lived in a suburb of Denver, Colo. with his wife Weda. All three of their children have grown up and moved out.

Brooks grew up until the age of 17 in Alleghany County, and is the author of "The Life and Times of Walter N. Brooks," an autobiography that it took him from 1998 until 2001 to write.

The book contains 374 pages of text plus almost 30 additional pages of photographs. The format is that of short anecdotes organized into 11 sections, with each section devoted to a particular part of Brooks' life. The sections include "The Early Years," "The War Years," "The Impossible Relationship," "The Rest Of My Life," "The Family," "Religious Beliefs," "Thoughts To Ponder," "Events That Effected America," "Political Observations," "Golf: The Ancient Game" and finally, the photo section.

Brooks said that it was curiosity about how his great-grandfather lived that led him to write his complete autobiography, so that he could have something to leave for his own grandchildren. "I made a few notes for my grandchildren, and that led to this biography of my own life, from the beginning until now. And, as you read it, you'll see that it's not only about me, but about how the whole neighborhood lived during those (Great Depression) years. I wanted to leave a record of my own life for my grandchildren."

It took Brooks between 15 and 20 revisions to bring the book to its final version, and during revision he said that he threw away more material than he kept.

He said the book has sold 100 copies, and although he has no advertising outlet for it, everybody who reads the book wants a copy of it. The linen paper used in the making of the book will not turn yellow from sitting in a warehouse for 100 years, and Brooks noted in this regard, "My hope was that it still be around 100 years from now." Brooks was born on a rural farm in Alleghany County, between Sparta and Roaring Gap, on April 6, 1923. He attended the Rich Hill School up through the seventh grade, and then, when bus service into Sparta became available, he went on to Sparta High School, until he left during his 10th-grade year in 1938. He then went to Maryland for a couple of months, where he worked on a farm for about three months before beginning a six- or seven-month stint at the Glen L. Martin Aircraft Production Company in Middle River, north of Baltimore. Then Brooks and a friend, Francis Blevins, entered military service together, for which he said the two had to get permission from their parents as they were both only 17 at the time. He was in the Army for six years, but his friend was killed in the big raid in Bari, Italy in 1943.

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