Evelyn Snead Brooks

Aw shucks Evelyn. You went and did it. You were supposed to live past 100 but you, Evelyn Francis Brooks (nee Snead), went and checked out on December 12, 2021, at the age of 96 right here in High Point. Of course, you weren’t ready, and we know inside you were being headstrong fighting to stay here longer.

The ornery, giving, stubborn, caring, cantankerous Evelyn was predeceased by her two older sisters, Dorothy Wyrtie Lowe (nee Snead), and Sylvia Lorraine Hester (nee Snead), all born in Danville, Va., to the late Pelham “PM” Morman Snead and Nellie Gray Snead.   Evelyn was born on July 28, 1925.

The family had a bodacious/peppy/spunky history spending the early 1930s and 1940s in High Point at one time living at 1011 Forrest Avenue. Her father worked at the High Point Creamery and then Clover Brand Dairies. Nellie worked at the bakery in the Sheraton the same building still standing. Then there was the nefarious side. Pelham was suspected of running a still “upon the hill” and in the 1940s when he ran (owned) the Five Point Sandwich Shop, it was rumored he sold illegal liquor. Nellie tried her hand in the business and transported the booze and her husband sold some of her “haul” to a fellow named Black Diamond. Evelyn tells of the days she and her sisters would be sitting in the back seat of the car while the liquor sloshed to and fro under them.

Ah, then the always blond-haired Evelyn got into the act. She would board the train in High Point – the city was dry at that time – and go to Danville, Va., where she would meet her father’s brother, “Fat” Snead. Both would buy the maximum amount of liquor allowed. She would fill the two empty suitcases she brought with her and head home the same day. While trying to negotiate her way down the aisle of the train, she could feel the stuff going, “slush, slush ... slush, slush ... slush, slush,” keeping time to the sway of the train. She later she worked at Guilford Hosiery and the Guilford Hospital.

In the late 1959-1960, Evelyn lived on East Capitol Street in Washington, D.C. with her mother, who rented rooms to six congressional pages, who were in their final year of Capitol Page School: Jim Colbert who was Sen. Goldwater’s page; Steve Goad, who would eventually serve in Vietnam; Jim Kolbe who became a congressman from Arizona; David Loge who would at one time own the Slim Jim snack company; O B Owens and Duke Zeller, who was Senate Minority Leader Everitt Dirksen’s page.

Her mother moved back to High Point and Evelyn moved to Maryland, but worked in D.C.  Did I mention stubborn. That was what she was as she drove from D.C. to Dr. Taky’s office in Laurel, Md. in the midst of having a heart attack.

When her mother was going to be put in a nursing home, Evelyn brought her to Maryland and got her off most of her medications and, while she was wheelchair bound, got her walking (and dancing) again.

Evelyn may have lived in the north … ah… but she never lost that “southern charm.” Her home was always a haven for good times and sad - always open to a friend whose divorce was nigh, a big rig truck driver who got stuck on the highway in front of her house in the snow, to a neighbor who was in jail because of a DWI. And all the others who would gather around her glass dining room table (she had a thing for glass and brass) and laugh and giggle and gossip. We would plot strategies for getting rich and drink coffee and sweet tea and partake in memorable brunches (sausage gravy, grits – oh so yummy) and Thanksgiving feasts (all were welcome) and backyard cookouts (corn grilled in the husks). A tidbit: she was always taken to be younger looking then her actual age and attributed it to using only Vaseline on her face.

Although thrifty she was generous in helping others and always tried to instill in others the importance of saving.  And it was at her home that I, Lou Ann, met my boyfriend of 20 years.  Both Evelyn and her mother returned to High Point, N. C., in the early 1990s, leaving us without her always welcoming, gathering place, her hospitality and comfort. Back home, her neighbor, Donna Hawks, became the person looking after her and eventually “keeping or getting her out of situations.”

Though Evelyn wasn’t an active participant of organized religion, she often gave praise where it was due in saying how fortunate she was to have had good health and the life she was given where she was able to live independently. She would often say “if it weren’t for the Good Man upstairs, I wouldn’t be here in the good shape that I am”.

Evelyn is survived by her sister Sylvia’s two sons, Edward “Ed” and Gary Hester and her sister Wyrtie’s daughter, Ann Hazelton.

So long for now Evelyn. You will be missed

Condolences may be expressed online at www.wrightfs.com.

Wright Funerals-Cremations is in charge of arrangements.