THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 2, 1995 TAG: 9505310232
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: W12B EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: THUMBS UP
SOURCE: BY JANELLE LA BOUVE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
At 82, Julia Brooks is in such good health that she doesn't even need eyeglasses.
``I have no patience with me when I'm sick. If I don't say `I'm sick,' it goes away. I volunteered 17 weeks with tendinitis when I couldn't raise my arms but so high,'' she said, raising her arm just above waist level.
During the 39 years she taught school in Norfolk County, she did not take a single sick day. In fact, she took off only three days in that time - one day each for the burial of family members, including her mother and first husband.
Now that she's a full-time volunteer, she has retained her devotion to duty.
Brooks, who is tall and trim, explains her stamina by saying that her mother taught her five children to be workers.
``I was born and raised in West Virginia and learned to work a long time ago before `work' was a dirty word,'' she said. ``We didn't have much money. For vacations, we attended every Bible school in the city. When we got home, we weeded, tatted, crocheted or embroidered.''
She recalls, too, that she helped pay college expenses by selling her tatting for 10 cents a yard.
Brooks still works and loves every minute of it.
To date, she has crocheted 170 afghans for Navy Relief.
She sparkles when she talks about mission trips sponsored by the Methodist Conference where she does ``medium-duty work'' with the blessing of her physician.
Eight years ago, she became a volunteer at Chesapeake General Hospital, where she has logged 9,800 hours. Last year alone, she donated 3,100 hours.
Six days each week she works at the hospital's information desk from 4 to 8:30 a.m. Then she heads for the gift shop.
``If someone is there to work in the shop, then I go from floor to floor and room to room pushing the gift cart,'' she said.
She thinks of Chesapeake General as her hospital and summarizes her duties there simply, ``Whatever needs to be done there, I do it.
``It's the nicest place in the world to work. The people are so cooperative and so nice.''
She likes being able to choose her own hours and taking off for mission trips knowing her job will be there for her when she returns.
Although she never knows what to expect, she sees each mission trip as an adventure.
``Whatever the circumstances, we just live with it and chalk it up to experience,'' she said.
She is an active participant in Volunteers in Missions, an organization sponsored by the United Methodist Conference. Missions trips have taken her to Jamaica, Mexico, Cuba, South Korea and Russia.
Her favorite trip was to Jamaica. There her tasks included chiseling stucco from the building's exterior, painting from a ladder and sawing wood with a Skil saw. At the end of the day, members of the missions group slept on the floor.
``We had to learn to eat less. The people had no money, and there was little food,'' she said. ``But Christ fed us. I never even opened the crackers I had taken along.''
Brooks remembers with joy the years she was a special education teacher at elementary schools including Park, Georgetown, Carver, Butts Road and Sparrow Road. After that, she taught second grade at Georgetown.
Despite those satisfying memories, Brooks lives for the present.
``I've never been happier than I am now,'' she said. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MORT FRYMAN
Last year, Julia Brooks donated 3,100 hours as a volunteer at
Chesapeake General Hospital.
by CNB