Life for families living in Jam Holler was hard, but when Mrs. Upchurch and the Brooks grandchildren moved, which they did several times, one of the places they lived in was a little worse than the home in Jam Holler. A tool shed where an old sawmill once stood in the area of Jam Holler served as their home. Naturally, the tool shed had no kitchen, so the place where Mrs. Upchurch cooked on a wood stove was in a lean-to near the tool shed. The lean-to had no floor. All five children shared one bed in the tool shed, and their grandmother slept on a cot. Being the oldest of the five children, a lot of responsibility rested on the young shoulders of Sam Brooks. He began at an early age doing any odd job he could find to help his grandmother. At the age of 12, he was on the square of Livingston with a shoe shine box shining shoes. For families around Livingston who owned the old fashioned kind of push mower, he mowed their yards. Sweeping the sidewalk in front of Sam Coward's drug store was another way he earned money. Over the years, he worked at many different places around Livingston, including the ice plant that once stood where Livingston Dairy Queen is now. Later on, Carvel Cope gave Sam a job in the concrete block business. During the time he worked with Carvel, the Rickman high school was being constructed. Sam recalled how just he and Carvel loaded completely by hand a truck that held 325 concrete blocks to be hauled to Rickman for the construction of the school. After arriving at the building site, just the two of them proceeded to unload the blocks, again all done by hand. They made not one or two loads, but a total 10 loads of concrete blocks were loaded and unloaded all in one day. Talk about a back ache! Can you imagine?
 

When Sam was in high school, one of the jobs he had was running the projector at the Ritz Theater. He speaks very highly of the close friendship he developed with Fred and Marinella Rose, co-owners at one time of the Ritz. Lucian Copeland, owner of a pool hall just off the square on Church Street, was another person who provided part time work for Sam. Sam told me one of the extra benefits that came with working at the pool hall was becoming a pretty good shot with a pool stick.

Sam did odd jobs for Dr. Charles Eley who owned Eley's Drug Store just off the square in Livingston. While working there, Dr. Eley must have seen Sam's potential and offered to pay his way to pharmacy school if he would agree to come back to Livingston and take over the drug store for him. And at one time, he planned to do just that.

Pumping gas for Doc Jolley at Jolley's Gulf Service Station on East Main Street in Livingston was another of Sam's odd jobs. He also worked for Butch Holman in Holman's Department store where he said he learned how to be what he described as "the best Christmas gift wrapper ever was." One of the highlights of Sam's life at age 16 was the fact that welfare benefits were no longer paid for him. He told me he couldn't have been happier when his name was removed from the state's list of welfare recipients. Even though Sam worked every possible minute he could in order to help provide for his grandmother and his younger siblings, he managed to find time for football and basketball. Any type of sports was something he loved to participate in, and that interest has done nothing but grow over the years. Even when he was really young, one of the games he remembered playing in the yard of the old Roberts Hotel was kick the can. That hotel that used to sit on the corner of the block that our new library will occupy in the not too distant future.

Sam's academic achievements were a little lacking at times during his high school days. He found it wasn't always possible to make it to Ms. Margaret Miller's typing class on time because of running the projector until late at night at the Ritz. Ms. Miller was so aggravated with his tardiness, she not only threatened to throw him out of typing class, she did just that. But a few of Ms. Miller's students saw a tender side of her from time to time, even though she didn't like letting it show. She came to Sam after throwing him out, and told him to come on back and take the final test, that she knew he could pass it. And even though he was too stubborn to take her up on the offer, the typing that he did learn while in Ms. Miller's class helped out later during his time in the army.

And evidently when Uncle Sam called young men into service in the early's '50's, it didn't really matter if you were just a week away from graduating from high school. That's when the call came for Sam. The Korean war had begun, and he and fellow classmate, Riley Johnson, were both drafted into service. Neither one got to walk down the aisle at Livingston Academy with their fellow classmates to receive their graduating diplomas. Instead, they were being shipped out for military duty. Both Sam and Riley received their diplomas in the mail.

Sam's military career ended with just a year and a half served because of his being diagnosed with tuberculosis. As a result of his illness, part of one lung had to be surgically removed. His recovery took six months in several different military hospitals.

Following his discharge from the army in 1956, Sam enrolled in Tennessee Tech on the GI bill. Because of his health situation, he could not play any kind of sports until his senior year at Tech when he became a member of the baseball team. He worked three summers at Standing Stone State Park as a life guard under the watchful eye of Coach L.E. Oakley, another person Sam maintained a close friendship with. But his health problems did not hold him back from doing some coaching on the side. While in school at Tech, he coached several bantam football teams in Livingston, and worked with Little Leaguers in Cookeville. It was while he was enrolled at Tenn Tech that a very attractive lady named Helen Polston of Harriman, Tenn., entered the picture. During Sam's junior year and Helen's senior year at Tech, they were married. Sam graduated from Tech in 1960, and enrolled at UT in Knoxville where he attained his Master's in only four quarters. His college education also includes a EDS from Middle Tennessee State University. Helen has also had a teaching career, and over the course of their marriage, their family grew to include a daughter, Holly, and a son, John. The Brooks family now includes three grandchildren, and they are looking forward to the birth of their first great-grandchild in August of this year. Two of Sam’s brothers, Joe and Bill, are deceased.