Sharing her love of life > She made volunteerism a lifelong occupation

Visiting Barbara Brookings at her summer camp on Phillips Lake is like walking into the pages of a fairy tale. The 1929 log cabin sits snugly under a canopy of trees and is surrounded by late summer flowers. The lake ripples quietly below the encasing mountains. From the stone chimney, a stream of smoke rises into the air like a hand waving you to come closer.

And, if that picture isn’t enchanted enough, consider this: Mrs. Brookings married her high school sweetheart, had seven children, nurtured 18 grandchildren and, if she had to do it all again, wouldn’t change a thing, not even the fact that she has an average of 30 people seated around her dinner table on any given summer night.

In her younger days, when elm trees formed arbors over Bangor’s fashionable roadways, Mrs. Brookings, then Barbara Wood, went to Bangor High School. Her family lived at 656 State St. (now the Ronald McDonald House), and as a teen-ager Barbara would sit in Cascade Park which seemed like her own private playground.

After secretarial training at Husson, working on a degree in home economics at the University of Maine and serving as a Wave in the Navy, Barbara Wood married Robert Brookings.

Together the newlyweds returned to college after World War II. In one class, bacteriology, Mrs. Brookings could hardly concentrate she was so enthralled with her new husband and their life together. Less than two years later, their first child was born.

While her husband, who had become a dentist, cared for and shined the teeth of Bangor’s citizens in one room of their large house on Grove Street, Mrs. Brookings was doing some caring and shining of her own in another room. “Dr. Brookings always had his business in the home,” she says with pride, “because he wanted to grow up with his kids.”

Within seven years, Mrs. Brookings had six children. Five years later, she had a seventh (a “bonus” she says).

Like so many housewives, she sought to compliment her family duties with an activity outside the home. She joined the Junior League and began training as a volunteer, a role that became a lifelong occupation.

As a member of the Good Samaritans, the United Way, the Bangor-Brewer Tuberculosis and Health Association, the board of the Philip Strickland House and several women’s associations, Mrs. Brookings was at the forefront of community service. And whether she was performing in a community production of “Rumpelstiltskin,” organizing a pediatric clinic at the hospital or establishing a children’s art center, Mrs. Brookings frequently had a row of children following close behind her.

Before the marriage, before the house and children and summer camp, Mrs. Brookings had been an artist, so when her youngest child expressed an interest in art, she took up her paint brush again and returned to her canvas. While teaching him, Mrs. Brookings began filling her home with oil landscapes, still lifes and seascapes. She had, after all, been one of the first students of Vincent Hartgen, longtime professor of art at the University of Maine.

Although most of the paintings lined the walls of her home, some of her designs were used on brochures or as logos for the volunteer organizations.

Today Mrs. Brookings spends as much time as possible honing her art, and every Monday morning, she attends an art class (just as she has for 17 years). “That’s my love now,” she says. “After I’ve finished creating seven children, I now create on canvas.”

But it’s obvious that Mrs. Brookings’ love of life continues to be broad. She remains actively involved in the lives of her children and their children, and she maintains her membership in numerous committees and associations in Bangor. In recent years, she has devoted much of her time to the restoration of the Isaac Farrar Mansion and was the guiding hand that produced the locally popular “Isaac Farrar Mansion Cookbook.”

Mrs. Brookings’ greatest joy is knowing that her children are not only brothers and sisters, but good friends. With this in mind, she looks once again to her high school sweetheart (without whom, she is quick to include, none of this would have been possible). Although Robert Brookings still works mornings, the couple has more time to share now.

“We had two nights alone here at the camp last week,” says Brookings, “and the quiet is more noisy than all the activity. But it’s fun to rediscover one another again.”

Tea to honor Brookings

The Isaac Farrar Mansion will honor Barbara Brookings at an afternoon tea 2:30-5 p.m. Sept. 26 at the Mansion. The fall program also includes afternoon teas on Oct. 24 and Nov. 12. These events are open to the public and cost $5 per person. For reservations, call 941-2808.