Edwin D. Brooks Jr.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution announces with great sorrow the death January 12, 2002, of Honorary Trustee and Honorary Member Edwin D. Brooks, Jr. at the Royal Megansett Nursing and Retirement Home in North Falmouth after a long illness. He was 89.

Ned Brooks had a long affiliation with the Institution. He served WHOI as Treasurer of the Corporation for 31 years and was an Honorary Trustee and Honorary Member of the Corporation at the time of his death. He was elected a Trustee and Member of the Corporation in 1948, and was also asked to serve on the Finance Committee that same year. In 1950 Ned was elected Treasurer of the Corporation, a position he held until his retirement in 1981. While Treasurer, he served in an ex officio capacity as a Trustee, Member of the Corporation and member of the Finance/Investment Committee. He served on numerous committees during his long affiliation with the Institution, including the Financial Policy Committee, Associates Executive Committee, Employees Retirement Fund, Nominating Committee, Pension Plan Committee, as well as on a number of ad hoc committees related to ships, land and other Institution activities. After his retirement as Treasurer, Ned was again elected a Trustee, serving from 1981 to 1986. He also served as a Member of the Corporation from 1981 to 1983, and was a member of the Investment Committee from 1981 to 1985. He was a member of the Institution’s Associates Program for more than 32 years.

A Boston investment manager for nearly 50 years, Edwin Deering Brooks, Jr. was born in Dedham in 1912 and raised in Duxbury and Concord, MA. He graduated from Harvard University in 1934 and attended Harvard Business School. During his early career as an investment manager, he was a partner in the real estate firm of Minot, Williams and Bangs (later Minot DeBlois and Maddison), whose lawyers and trustees dated back to the eighteenth century. He was also a partner in a private trustee business, Shattuck and Brooks, in which his partner was the prominent Boston lawyer, state legislator, city councilor and statesman Henry Lee Shattuck. Later in his career he became a private trustee associated with the law firm of Ropes & Gray in Boston.

An active sailor, aviator and traveler, Ned was a radio operator on an expedition to chart the coast of Labrador, led by Dr. Alexander Forbes and sponsored by the Grenfell Mission. During World War II he oversaw the financial management of a research laboratory at Harvard University.

In addition to his long service to the Institution, he was a Member of the Corporation of Brigham & Women’s Hospital and was a Trustee of the Suffolk Franklin Savings Bank of Boston.

He is survived by his wife, Janet M. Brooks, of Falmouth, MA; two sons, Edward E. Brooks of Waltham, Ma and Hooper L. Brooks of Yorktown, NY; a stepson, Edward Cannon of Bourne, MA; a stepdaughter, Joyce Cannon of Falmouth, MA: a sister, Elizabeth Ford of Bat Cave, NC; and several nieces and nephews. He was also the father of the late Frances D. Brooks. His first wife, Theodora Lawrence Brooks, died in 1976, and his second wife, Margaret Monahan, died in 1992.

Services are private. Burial will take place in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, MA. Memorial donations may be made to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Development Office, Fenno MS#40, Woods Hole, MA 02543.