Series 7: Barbara Brooks Kerner Family Papers, 1922-1992
Scope and Contents
The Barbara Brook Kerner family papers contain primarily family correspondence. Barbara wrote frequently to her parents, and her letters detail student and early married life and concerns in the mid-20th century. A long-time peace and social activist, of particular interest are the letters she sent in her early adulthood when she trained as a public health educator in the South and worked part of a summer at C.P.S. Camp #46. Also in this series are some papers of her husband, Edward H. Kerner, most concerning his patent on a nuclear engine and job applications.
Conditions Governing Access
Collection is open for research.
Biographical / Historical
Barbara Brooks Kerner, the Brooks descendant who consolidated the Brooks family papers in her home in Newark, Delaware, was the middle child of Eleanor Stabler Brooks and Charles F. Brooks. She was born September 22, 1922, and grew up in Milton, Massachusetts, graduating from Milton High School in 1941. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1944, and earned an M.A. at Cornell University; during the summer of 1945 she worked at C.P.S. Camp #46, Big Flats, N.Y., for two months. She was in the graduate program in Public Health in Education the University of Michigan, 1946-1947 and then worked as a community public health educator in Syracuse for a year. In 1948 she married Edward Kerner under the care of Brooklyn Preparative Meeting. Edward H. Kerner (1924-2002) was a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project in Dayton, Ohio, and long-time physics professor at the University of Delaware.
Barbara Kerner was active in peace activities, including draft counseling during the Vietnam War and its aftermath. She and her husband had three children: Benjamin, born 1949; Jeffrey (1951-1973); and Winifred, born 1955. A lifelong Quaker, she was a member of Newark Monthly Meeting at the time of her death on October 28, 2007.
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