Ralph and Dorothy Brooks

Ralph and Dorothy's Wedding - Married September 18, 1948

Ralph Brooks and his siblings had a typical Depression Era childhood, though they did spend the entire summer of 1935 quarantined with scarlet fever after eating bad spaghetti at a church picnic. Ralph and Kenneth learned the carpentry trade from Roland and they learned to swing a hammer at age five. The Brooks family built several homes and churches in the Niagara Falls area. The Brooks family worked hard and Ralph dropped out of school in eighth grade to work at Bentley Sporting Goods, making tennis rackets and crokinole boards. During this time, the Brooks family sold their chicken farm to a developer who built a residential neighborhood. One of the neighborhood streets is called “Brooks Street.”

At the age of 19, Ralph met Dorothy Peters at a church camp.  Ralph and Dorothy married in Niagara Falls and lived in a chicken coop that Ralph converted into a home. Ralph worked many jobs to support his family. He drove a Coca-Cola truck, worked as a milkman, and was a tissue paper manufacturer where he suffered the loss of two fingers from his right hand. He worked as a foreman at the Niagara Falls Hydro Electric power plant and built the Skylon Tower with Kenneth. Ralph had four children, Richard, Karen, Peter, and Brian.