Thomas Ross Brooks was born in Roby, Texas, June 24th, 1891. He was raised in El Paso, Texas, and moved to Reno with his mother in 1907. Between that time and the date of his enlistment, August 8, 1917, he became well known in Washoe County. He was a volunteer and was assigned to Battery B, 340th Field Artillery, of the 89th Division.

He had been in the service about three months and had risen to the rank of Corporal, when he was taken ill with pneumonia at Camp Funston, Kansas. He passed away there on the 20th of November 1917, and his remains were sent back
to his home in Reno for interment. Recruiting Officers from the Army, Navy and Marines acted as pallbearers, and Spanish War Veterans and University Cadets furnished the escort. He was buried from the St. Thomas Aquinas Church with full military honors.

The following extract from a letter written by Captain Francis E. Goodwin, his Commanding Officer, shows in part the esteem in which Thomas Brooks was held by those who knew and associated with him: “Personally, I thought a great deal of him, and my professional opinion of him may be better understood when I tell you that he was appointed the first bugler in this battery and was chosen by myself as my orderly. That will show you the confidence I had
placed in him and I can assure you that I had the highest regard for him in every way, both personally and as a soldier. “He was always willing and punctilious in the performance of all of his duties and had endeared himself to the entire personnel of the battery, and they were saddened men when I informed them of the report that came from the hospital. He will be accompanied from the hospital to the train by the entire battery and escorted with full military honors as befits the soldier that he was.”
The gallant soldier is survived by his mother, Mrs. Willie Jane Erickson, of 412 Maple Street, Reno, Nevada, and brother, William Brooks, of Mexico.