In this family memoir Brooks shared the legacy of being raised in a holiness home, against a backdrop of the rough and ready mining world of Yorkshire, and the influential witness of father and uncles determined to serve the Lord.
The grandfather of Noel Brooks was Jonathan Brooks, a colliery deputy in Yorkshire and Lancashire, in central England. Jonathan Brooks had seven children, of whom only six are known: John (Jack) , Edward (Ted), Solomon (Sol), William, Absalom (Ab) and Jane.
Four sons accepted Christ as personal savior.
Absalom Brooks married Mary Mason and had Phyllis, Noel, Leslie. His first wife died of cancer in the early 1930's and remarried another woman, also a Mary. He died in the early 1950s, his funeral held at the Assembly of God Church in Rotherham. He had been at one time a Methodist local preacher.
Edward had two sons and one was named Harold Brooks, and a daughter Ethel
William had son Arnold Brooks (Minister in the Elim Pentecostal Church)
Noel Brooks married
(1) Nora Wright (1912-1991)
Nora attended Bible College in the 1930's, she evangelized and did street witnessing, and then married Noel Brooks. She wrote articles and essays, some were collected into a small volume. She was an energetic, evangelistic, and a unique person by all accounts. A scholar is now working with her unpublished manuscript chronicling her life and faith.
(2) Ruth Webley (1919-2008)
Ruth Webley had attended Bible College in the 1940's and ministered with her brother Paul in the British Pentecostal Holiness Conference in the 1950's. One of her keen interests was ministry to prisoners. She was described as a joyful person who brought new happiness into Noel's life.
