Lillie Janice Brooks, 83

Mother Lillie Janice McEachern Brooks was born on September 17, 1943, to Aaron and Hattie McEachern in the small town of Marietta, North Carolina. Often called Janice by her family and friends, she was born the middle of ten children born to Mr. and Mrs. McEachern, and spent her childhood joining her parents in sharecropping when not in school. She graduated from Fairmont High School in 1961, and soon after made her way north to New Haven, Connecticut, to help two of her sisters with their children. Once she decided to stay in New Haven, she began working at Pratt & Whitney. There, she met Elder Grant Tolbert, the son of Beulah Heights’ second pastor, who witnessed to her the gospel of Jesus Christ. Mother Brooks came to visit Beulah Heights First Pentecostal Church, where she was baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ and received the gift of the Holy Ghost. It was at Beulah Heights where she met her husband, Theodore L. Brooks. They courted and were married on April 30, 1966.

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