Donald N. Brooks, a longtime active member of Arlington Baptist Church, where he had served as dean of its Bible college for decades, died Thursday of pancreatic cancer at Loch Raven Veterans Administration Living and Rehabilitation Center. He was 87.
The son of Lester Brooks, a carpenter, and Clara Myers Brooks, a homemaker, Donald Nehemiah Brooks was born in Baltimore and raised on Cole Street in Southwest Baltimore. He attended city public schools.
During the waning days of World War II, he served in the Army Air Corps as an inventory manager in Germany. He was discharged in 1945 and returned to Baltimore.
Mr. Brooks then worked as an upholsterer and an insurance agent. During the 1980s, he taught accounting at Arlington Baptist School and was dean for several decades at the Arlington Bible College in Windsor Mill.
"The church and school was what he did with his time," said his son, Robin E. Brooks of Reading, Pa.
His wife of 54 years, the former Margaret M. Dorsey, died in 2005.
Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday at his church, 3030 N. Rolling Road.
In addition to his son, Mr. Brooks is survived by four grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Another son, Ronald Brooks, died in 2002.