'Goodwife' Susanna Brooks

Please see http://www.tributaries.us/p867.htm#i8661 for details. Her parents are not known.

Christopher Brooks comments:

"Many secondary sources superficially dismiss Susanna Brooks with the passing reference that she was "an ancient and skillful woman" noted for her medical knowledge. The source of this quotation, given in full in Hurd's Hist. Middlesex County, is much more revealing. Hurd quotes the account of Daniel Gookin, the English superintendent of Bay Colony Indians prior to Philip's War (1675-76)"

• " ... He sent the (scalped) girl to an ancient and skillful woman living at Woburn, about ten miles distant, called Goodwife Brooks, to get her to use her best endeavours to recover the maid; which, by the blessing of God, she did, though she were about two years or more in curing her ... This cure, as some skillful in chirurgery apprehend, is extraordinary and wonderful; and hence the glory and praise is to be ascribed to God, that worketh wonders without number."

SURNAME BRADFORD IS CITED IN MOST BOOKS

Susanna, likely married in England just a few years before their migration. Surname of Bradford, used by many people, not proven. She survived Ezekiel and married, second, Henry Brooks on March 21, 1651, age estimated 41. She died September 15, 1681, in Woburn, aged estimated 71 years.

M. 2ND HENRY BROOKS.

"Susanna, wife of Henry, was well known in Woburn, het familiar name being "Goodwife Brooks." She seems to have been a very helpful member of the community an records speak of her as, "an ancient and skillful woman, famous for her attainments in medical science."

-Brooks family genealogy

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/162829545/susanna-brooks

From Find a Grave contributor:

Ezekiel Richardson married, by 1632, Susanna. They had 7 children: Phebe Baldwin, Theophilus, Josiah, John, Jonathan, James, & Ruth.

She married (2), by 27 March 1651, Henry Brooks. Death: 15 Sep 1681 in Woburn, Middlesex, Massachusetts.

Some believe she was a daughter of Governor William Bradford Find a Grave Memorial# 124 Susanna Bradford Richardson Brooks Birth about 1616 in Leiden or Amsterdam, Holland, Europe. This connection is not proven by contemporary genealogical standards of proof.

References

• https://medicalhealthhumanities.com/2017/12/17/a-brief-history-on-women-doctors-in-the-british-empire/