A. E. Brooks Page 573 - A.E. Brooks, president of the large candy manufacturing concern of A.E. Brooks and Company, has developed his business into one of the flourishing concerns of Grand Rapids, through years of conscientious efforts. A son of Otis and Beulah (Eddy) Brooks, he was a small boy, he moved with his family to Orange, Massachusetts, where his father was a prominent merchant. He was educated in the public schools of Orange. During his young manhood, he worked in New York three winters, returning to the farm in the summer months to assist in the farm work. When he was twenty-three years of age, he began teaching school, pursuing this profession five years during the winter season and worked on the farm in the summer. In the summer of 1867, he made a visit to his brother, Henry C Brooks, in Grand Rapids, where the later was interested in the candy making business. In Grand Rapids, A.E. Brooks attended business college to increase his equipment for a commercial career. His father and mother both died in 1872, and in the following year he sold the home farm and brought his family to Grand Rapids where he purchased a fourth interest in the candy manufacturing concern of Putnam Brothers Company, in which his brother was a partner. Putnam & Brooks was the firm name adopted in 1876 which existed until 1889, when A.E. Brooks sold his interest in the business to start a candy manufacturing concern which bore his name. A manufacturing and jobbing business which had for its territory all of western and northern Michigan has been carried on by the company since that time, enjoying a steady growth in output. By the year 1909, incorporation of the business was necessary to handle in a more efficient way the constantly expanding volume of trade which came to the company. Mr Brooks became president of the newly incorporated A.E. Brooks and Company, which his two sons, Jay W and Marcus D were installed as vice-president and secretary-treasurer, respectively. The plant was then located at 116-122 Ionia avenue southwest. Mr Brooks has continued to be the active head of the concern since that time, and the large amount of business and the sanitary manufacturing plant equipped in the most modern way attest the fact that he is one of the ablest and most influential business men of Grand Rapids. He married Julia E Ward at Orange, Massachusetts, and they became the parents of four children: Sarah H., Marcus D., Jay W., and Beulah E.

Transcriber: Terry Start
Created: 13 December 2002