Agnes Mary Hoovens Brooks (July 7, 1901-November 4, 1976)1 worked at the Harvard College Observatory as a Pickering Fellow from 1925-1926.
At the HCO, Hoovens worked on measuring the mean magnitude of Cepheid variable stars on ten photographic plates in the Harvard collection.2 She also collected materials about the principle contributions of the greatest astronomers from the year 1400 to 1900, with the intention of later assembling them into a book.3 After earning her master’s degree in astronomy from Radcliffe College in 1926, she moved on to doctorate studies in astronomy at Columbia University in New York City.4
Hoovens was born and raised in Goshen, Indiana, to parents Amasa G. Hoovens and Emma Vail Hoovens.5 Her mother was well known locally as a successful businesswoman.6 Hoovens earned her bachelor’s degree from Iowa University in 1925.7 In 1927 or 1928, she moved back to Indiana and began working as a teacher,8 and on September 8, 1928, she married lawyer and musician Leonard Joseph Brooks Jr.9 The couple had a son named Leonard J. Brooks III and three grandchildren.10
Written by Elizabeth Coquillette, 2022
Citations:
1-Application for marriage license, in “Indiana Marriages, 1811-2007”, https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/LKLR-Z8T/agnes-mary-hoovens-1901-1... “Obituary: Leonard Joseph Brooks Jr.,” The South Bend Tribune (South Bend, Indiana), May 3, 1979, p. 20.↩2-Annie Jump Cannon, “Report of the Astronomical Fellowship Committee,” Annual Report of the Maria Mitchell Association, vol. 24 (1926): 16-17. Bibcode: 1926MMAAR..24…16C↩
3-Ibid.↩
4-Annie Jump Cannon, “Report of the Astronomical Fellowship Committee,” Annual Report of the Maria Mitchell Association, vol. 25 (1927): 13-14. Bibcode: 1927MMAAR..25…13C.↩
5-Application for marriage license, in “Indiana Marriages, 1811-2007”.↩
6- “Mrs. Hoovens’ Estate $150,000,” The South Bend Tribune (South Bend, Indiana), May 10, 1956, p. 45.↩
7- Cannon, “Report of the Astronomical Fellowship Committee” 1926.↩
8-Application for marriage license, in “Indiana Marriages, 1811-2007”.↩
9- “Married Recently in Goshen, Ind.” The South Bend Tribune (South Bend, Indiana), September 16, 1928, p. 20.↩
10-“Obituary: Leonard Joseph Brooks Jr.”↩
