Often when doing family history research one is presented with a few facts that you can add to the database: birth, death, where they lived. If your lucky maybe a nice obituary can be found to fill out a bit more of the person’s life. More often, not.

That is why I love doing newspaper research. Because sometimes you find out details about your ancestor’s life that you would never have known otherwise. In this case I was doing some Vermont research, because they have been adding more Vermont papers to some of the newspaper database I use. I found this fun gem regarding John Brooks, Sr. and his son, John H. Brooks, Jr, in Burlington. Looks like they enjoyed a little pool. The odds are, there was probably a little side betting going on too. At this time 1865, Junior was 28 years old.

Junior ran a billiard hall later in life, maybe he had a love of the game? I found this in the University of Vermont Collage Yearbook from 1900:

I believe this was a collage boy’s drinking line, and apparently Junior’s billiard room/hall was one of ‘the places to go’ for a bit of fun.

All work and no play makes John a dull boy!