SCHOOL EXPLORES STE. GENEVIEVE SITE; HOME OF BLACK FAMILY EXAMINED FOR PRESERVATION

STE. GENEVIEVE -- The year after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed segregated schools, Jack Brooks became the first black student to graduate from Ste. Genevieve High School. That and other facts about Brooks' family are of interest to a group of students from Southeast Missouri State University who are doing an assessment of the 150-year-old house he grew up in.

The Brooks house on St. Mary Road one day could become the city's newest historical site, this one dedicated to the legacy of African-Americans.

Thirteen students are enrolled in the Archaeological Field School being operated by Southeast, Murray State University and the Department of Natural Resources through July 10.

From Monday through Thursday, the students are excavating a suspected privy and summer kitchen at the Felix Valle State Historic Site. But Friday they got to enter The Brooks House for the first time.

Brooks, his wife Helen and a grandson drove in from St. Louis to give the students and their supervisors, Dr. Bonnie Stepenoff and Dr. Carol Morrow, a tour of the house. The students, some historic preservation and some archaeology majors, also are searching the city archives for deeds, abstracts and probate records that may provide clues to its history.

It is known that the Brooks family bought the two-story house in 1924 -- Jack was born there in 1936 -- but the researchers are trying to pinpoint a date when a house first appeared on the land. Stepenoff is sure it dates to the mid-19th century.

The students are collecting nails and compiling floor plans, all of which become evidence in making determinations about the house's historical significance.

Brooks' father, William, lived in the three-bedroom frame building until moving to St. Louis to live with his son 12 years ago. William was well known and highly thought of in the Ste. Genevieve area. He worked for the Rozier family.

"He did everything for them," Jack said.

William's wife, Johanna, was a schoolteacher before the family moved to Ste. Genevieve.

A nearby street, Brooks Drive, is named for the family.

The students asked Brooks for stories his father told about Ste. Genevieve. He recalled his father's claim that a hole in a certain telephone pole came from Jesse James' gun.

Brooks and his brothers had to get a bit older before they figured out that Jesse James and telephones weren't contemporaries.

Jim Baker, site administrator at Felix Valle, says the city committee that oversees landmarks initiated the inquiry into whether the Brooks house should be preserved.

The inside has sustained considerable flood damage. As Brooks surveyed the mess of overturned furniture, ruined books and stained walls in the living room, he still smiled.

"I remember right where we all sat," he said.

Because of the danger the nearby Mississippi River poses, Stepenoff says the work being done to document the house is important whether or not it becomes a historical site.

"Its future is kind of in question," she said. "We are photographing and documenting it in case a flood destroys it."

The Brookses brought memorabilia from their home for the students to sift through -- a painting of William Sr., photographs of his sons and other items. The students are looking for clues to "how the town has changed over time and how the ethnic makeup of the town has changed," Stepenoff said.

At one time in the 18th century, Africans accounted for 40 percent of the Ste. Genevieve population.

The field school, now in its second year, is a 10-year project of the university. Ste. Genevieve's French, German and Anglo-American influences make the town a rich laboratory because so much has been preserved, Stepenoff said.

She credits both the fact that development largely passed Ste. Genevieve by and its very active preservationist community.

The students asked Brooks how it was growing up black in Ste. Genevieve. Though he had to attend a black school in Crystal City until the desegregation ruling, he said he was always treated well in Ste. Genevieve.

"I guess that's the reason I'm so fond of this place."

Jack has worked for Boeing for 38 years. His brother, William Jr., was an assistant to former Secretary of Labor Elizabeth Dole, and their brother Sidney works for the San Diego Chargers.

Jack left Ste. Genevieve to find work that same year he graduated from high school. He thinks he may move back some day. "I'm not a city boy," he said. "I'm from here."