Mary Coy Brooks

Mary Coy Reid was born on Christmas Eve in 1947, in Kilgore, Texas to Alvin Coy and Mary Helen (Dunlap) Reid. She attended school in Mineral Wells, Texas and as a young girl worked Saturdays at a dress shop in the famous Baker Hotel, where she was paid $5 a day. Her mother and brother James also worked at the hotel. Mary later attended high school in Fort Worth, where she met and eventually married the brother of a classmate, Johnnie Wayne Braswell. The couple had two daughters, Angela and Misty, before divorcing. In 1970 Mary went to Elko, Nevada, travelling “with a man who had to go pick up his saddle.” She and the cowboy soon parted ways, but she remained in Elko, working in the casinos as a cocktail waitress to support her two young daughters. In Elko she met a musician, Ralph Barfell, and as she told it, “we went down to the City Clerk to see about getting a marriage license, and they gave us one. So we went down to the justice of the peace to see about getting married, and he married us.”

Fortunately, Mary was born with a love of travel as the couple spent the next several years living on the road as Ralph played music in bars and nightclubs across the West. As Angela and Misty reached school age the family lived for a time in Fort Worth and then Escondido, California, before eventually settling in Washington state, where they lived until they were divorced in the mid-1980s. Newly single, Mary went out to the Elks Club in Marysville one night to see a girlfriend who worked there tending bar. While there she was introduced to a man, Mike Brooks, who was also there to see the bartender, except he was hoping for a date. The bartender was quickly forgotten and Mike and Mary were married soon after, with Mary gaining three more children, Doug, David, and Heather. Mary soon found herself on the road again as Mike’s company, Automation Services, Inc., took him around the country and she travelled with him. It was during these years that they bought their first motorhome.

Mary loved to entertain and was always the life of the party. She and Mike hosted holidays and many other occasions and loved spending time with family and friends. For many years they hosted an annual fall gathering, known as the “Corn Feed,” when guests would pick their own fresh corn from the garden. People gravitated to Mary wherever she went and she would complain that she couldn’t fly anywhere without hearing the life story of her seatmate, whether she wanted to or not. She was always up for an adventure and would pick up and go anywhere for anything at a moment’s notice. She developed a particular love of traveling by train when an aunt and uncle took her on a trip from Texas to California via rail at the age of 16. She kept the driftwood she collected during that trip for the rest of her life. Her plans to take the Trans-Siberian Railway were postponed due to Covid and the war between Russia and Ukraine, but she did take many other train trips, including through Mexico’s Copper Canyon.

She loved books and literature and was very well read. She had a lifelong fascination with Africa, which began in childhood and was inspired by books and movies. As an adult she traveled to Africa three times (including a visit to the home of Karen Blixen, on whose memoir the film Out of Africa was based). She was also able to visit the homes of her idols Georgia O’Keefe, in Abiquiu, New Mexico, and Frida Kahlo in Mexico City.

Mary loved animals of all kinds, especially dogs. She acquired her first childhood dog, Penny, who was found as a stray when the family went for a picnic at the river and Mary tearfully refused to leave without her. She also had a particular love for elephants and giraffes and was a longtime supporter of the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Nairobi, Kenya. Interacting with and helping to feed the orphaned infant elephants was a high point of her life. During her first visit there she became so excited that her blood sugar crashed and the elephant caretakers had to give her sugar from their sugar bin. She also traveled to Vietnam and Thailand, and she and Mike spent many years wintering in and traveling through Mexico, where she loved exploring in her Jeep. She loved finding undiscovered, off-the-beaten-path places. Their “second home” in Mexico was an oceanfront RV site surrounded by palm trees and bougainvillea in a small town in Nayarit. They built a covered brick patio and outdoor kitchen next to the motorhome and loved to sit in the shade watching the waves and the seabirds and enjoying the salt air and ocean breezes. Her homes in Tulalip, Washington and Goodyear, Arizona were filled with art and other treasures collected during her adventures.

In recent years she became an ardent fan of Mongolian hard rock band “The Hu” and saw them perform live a number of times. She also loved the blues and in earlier years enjoyed attending the Winthrop Blues Festival.

Mary died peacefully at her home in Tulalip on March 30, 2023, just two weeks after returning from a trip to Puerta Vallarta with her “adopted” son Jeff, his partner Saul, and her life-long best friend, Linda Milam of Gainesville, Texas. Mary was preceded in death by her husband, Mike Brooks, son, Kevin, daughter, Heather, and her two brothers, Johnny and James.

She is survived by her children, Angela and husband Al, Misty and husband Jerry, Doug and husband Steven, David and wife Ruth, and Jeff and partner Saul, grandchildren Miko, TJ and wife Naomi, Kyler and wife Ashley, Kitty and fiancé Mitchell, and Madison and husband Simeon, as well as her great grandchildren Evelyn, Audrey, Lincoln and Asher, and so many friends found along the way.

A celebration to see Mary off on her final adventure will be held this summer at the family home in Tulalip.

Godspeed, Mary.

Walking along beneath the lights of that miracle mile

Me and Mary making our way into the night

You can hear the cries from the carnival rides

The pinball bells, and the skee ball slides

Watching the summer sun fall out of sight

There’s a warm wind coming in from off of the ocean

Making its way past the hotel walls to fill the street

Mary is holding both of her shoes in her hand

Said she likes to feel the sand beneath her feet

Kenny Chesney. “Anything But Mine.” When the Sun Goes Down (2004).