Mrs. Blanche Brooks, the wife of the late W.A. Brooks, Sr., fourth president of the Farmers National Bank, was born in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, July 18, 1870, in the same house in which her father was born. In 1872, her family moved to Cass County, Missouri, where she attended the public schools, an Academy in Pleasant Hill, Missouri, and two Normal Schools. She taught school in Cass County, Missouri, for eight years. She became a member of the Christian Church in Cass County in 1886.

In the spring of 1896, she met Mr. W.A. Brooks of Forney, both being members of the wedding party of Yancey McKellar, of Forney, who married Emily Guyton of Missouri. The following year Blanche Lane became the bride of W.A. Brooks.

Mrs. Brooks united with the First Christian Church of Forney in 1897 and became actively engaged in the work of the church, serving as member of the State Board of the Women's Missionary Society of Texas for several years, president and treasurer of the local missionary society and teacher in the Bible school. She has been active in the social and civic organizations of Forney throughout the years.

Mrs. Brooks is the mother of three children, W.A. Jr., James K. and Ellen Brooks West, and has imparted to them many of her sterling qualities. Although Mrs. Brooks has always felt that her duties lay in the home rather than dealing in any direct way with the business activities of her family, she has had her influence, demonstrated by the fact that she is the mother of two bank presidents and wife of another.

In speaking of the Brooks family, Mr. Arthur A. Everts of Dallas tells of the many interesting associations he and Mrs. Everts have had with Mr. and Mrs. Brooks. Mr. Everts says that Mrs. Brooks and her late husband have not only been prize friends of their family, but great friends and helpers of the Christian Church in the sate and over the nation. She was always a smiling and enthusiastic attendant at all conventions of the Christian Church, and her absence always created a vacant space which could not be filled, he said.

Mrs. Brooks has always been an exponent of the philosophy that ultimately things will work out for the best. She insists on one doing all that he can, and when he has done this, cease to worry, and devote his time and energy to some other project which perhaps one can do something about.

Mrs. Brooks is truly a gentle woman, loved and admired by all her friends.