DEC. 27 ISSUE ANSWERS: The Roy Brooks home was constructed for $12,000.00 in 1922 by lumberman Bradford “Roy” Brooks (1878- 1952) and his wife Lydia “Miranda” Brooks (1874-1930). It was a blend of the Four Square, Arts and Crafts and Prairie Styles of architecture. The most striking feature was the astonishing array of natural fieldstones that were carefully selected and arranged by Romeo’s finest stone mason, Joe Sifton (1853-1941). Frank Lloyd Wright’s influence could be seen in the multitude of cube shapes in the building, the wide overhanging “cantilevered” roofs, the Prairie Style “ribbon” windows in the sunroom, the “Chicago” picture window in the living room, and the tapering chimney that dramatically extends through the roof eaves. When completed in January of 1923, the home was immediately acclaimed as “one of the finest houses” in all of Romeo, a landmark of early “modern” architecture. Unfortunately, just before Christmas in 1930, Miranda Brooks unexpectedly died. Her funeral which “was largely attended” was held in the living room of her “dream” home. Two years later Roy married Miss Ruby Mervin (1891-1979), a stenographer for a major Detroit newspaper. Roy would eventually sell his lumber company and he and Ruby would spend their last years devoted to the Lost Lake Woods Resort in Alcona County, Michigan. When Roy died in 1952 he was buried in Romeo next to Miranda. When Ruby died at the resort 27 years later, she would be buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Detroit. Meanwhile, the Brooks residence by 1956 became the home for the Frank (1917-1998) and Dorothy (1917-2004) Murphy family. Their six children would later recall the fun they had, nearly every day, chasing each other around the formal rooms of the house on their tricycles! Richard M. Daugherty