After a long and respected life, Ann Brooks took one major secret to her grave. This surprising secret only came to light more than one hundred years after her death.
Ann was born in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, in 1834, the daughter of Mason Anthony Smith. In 1850 she married James Humphries, a young local man eager to migrate to Australia under a scheme that accepted only married couples. Just eleven days after their wedding, they sailed aboard the Joseph Soames for South Australia. Two sons, George and Eli, were born in Adelaide, but their lives changed dramatically in 1854 when James converted to Mormonism and decided to journey to America.
Their voyage took a fateful turn when their ship was damaged and forced to stop in Hawaii. There, tragedy struck when young Eli died. It was also where Ann met Thomas Brooks, an Englishman from Manchester. Although she continued to California with James and George, she could not forget Thomas. Within weeks of arriving in San Francisco, she returned to Hawaii with George, and she and Thomas married in January 1857.
The Brooks family later settled in Victoria, where four more children were born. Thomas died from typhoid in 1867, leaving Ann widowed and supported by her teenage son George. Ann, her children and their families eventually settled in Corunnun. Further sorrow followed when her daughter Caroline died in 1892, and Ann helped raise her four grandchildren.
Ann was remembered as a devoted family woman and active church member, and her death in 1912 was deeply felt by many. Yet she never spoke of her first marriage, her journey to California or the difficult choice that changed the course of her life. Those secrets remained hidden until family historians uncovered them more than a century later.
Research by Stephen Brooks great-great grandson
Story by Stephen Brooks great-great grandson


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