The Brooke family visiting the USS Massachusetts in 2012. Pictured (left to right) are Molly, Branson, Jason, Morgan and Moriah.
Courtesy | Jason Brooke
Jason Brooke’s travel list is just two states short of visiting every state in the United States twice. He quickly adds he’s also close to being in every state three times.
Trips in 2024 include Hawaii with all four Brooke children and Texas for Jason and Moriah Brooke, his youngest daughter. It’s the second time the Brookes have traveled in Texas, and Jason and Moriah Brooke recall different highlights of the trip.
Jason Brooke, a securities agent and investment advisor at J.P. Morgan Securities at Chase Bank in Mount Gilead, is a self-described “fan of space and the Apollo Space program.” He was amazed by the size of the Houston Space Center. The center has been completely restored to what it was like when a man landed on the moon by restoring the rooms with computer controls, audio and video. Visitors are seated in the room where astronauts’ families watched the space missions.
Moriah Brooke liked the Space Center and also found the George H.W. Bush Library and Museum impressive. She said she learned more about Bush there than when she was in school. Both she and her dad became emotional when visiting Chris Kyle’s grave in Austin, Texas. He was a Navy Seal and the subject in the movie “American Sniper.”
Her first memory of travelling was when she was 6 or 7 and they visited their Aunt Heather in New York. In the city, Moriah Brooke remembers riding on the subway and visiting the Statue of Liberty. It was all like a dream for her.
“I decided I liked travelling,” Moriah Brooke recalled, “but didn’t like the city.”
Moriah Brooke, who is a student at OSU Mansfield majoring in social work and history, said she has favorite memories from each trip. On their 2016 “Road trip of a lifetime,” she remembers horseback riding with her siblings in Yellowstone National Park.
“I remember the beauty of the area. There were absolutely the most gorgeous places on that trip,” she said.
The interest in history is something both Moriah and Jason Brooke feel was sparked by travels and grows with travel. She remembers a trip to Serpent Mound in southern Ohio which created an interest for her in history and in Native American History.
The tradition of travel goes back two more generations in the Brooke family. Jason’s mother, Penny Brooke, recalls her family camping with her father Frank Reed. It was mostly in Ohio where they would visit Lake Erie and places like the Battle of Fallen Timbers. When Penny Brooke and her husband, Bob, began travelling with the children, they also did a lot of camping.
“It all started with the trip to Gettysburg,” Penny Brooke said. “Bob wanted the children to learn about history and know their country.”
Both Penny and Jason Brooke laughed as they recalled the camping trips in the family’s legendary Ford Pinto wagon, which included the eldest son Tommy and daughter Heather. Lately, Jason Brooke has graduated to motels as the family travelled in several states. 2012 was the “Northeast” trip, 2014 the west and a visit to an uncle in Dallas with a stop at Daley Plaza where JFK was assassinated.
After reading “Undaunted Courage” by Stephen Ambrose about the Lewis and Clark expedition, the family visited the Northwest and saw Devil’s Tower, were in a tepee in North Dakota, wondered at scenery in the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, and Crater Lake in Oregon. In 2017, they completed a trip in the Southwest.
On the Northwest trip, Jason Brooke asked each of the kids to pick two of the eight destinations they would visit and name five facts and two things they were looking forward to seeing. They groaned at the request, but found they learned a lot along the way. Molly Brooke got back and said the teacher asked at the beginning of school if anyone knew in what state Mount Rushmore was. She was able to proudly raise her hand and answer “South Dakota.”
While his family’s travels kindled an interest in history, Jason Brooke also credits his junior high history teacher Chris King for growing that interest.
“In Mr. King’s class we were encouraged to read “The Frontiersman,” and my friends talked about it. I read “The Frontiersman” in college as a textbook,” Jason Brooke said.
Several places remain on his bucket list, including the Golden Gate Bridge and Yosemite in California. He also has a goal of seeing all the presidents’ libraries and homes, as well as the homes of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
Some sights stand out in Jason Brooke’s mind when asked about his favorite trips. He recalls the wide open spaces of Iowa and U.S. highways where “you look out to crops of corn and sunflowers as far as the eye can see.” He added that it was a big surprise to see cherry orchards in Montana.
As he’s visited the battlefields and sites of the Revolutionary War, his admiration for those early patriots has grown. He notes those veterans placed their lives on the line and in many cases sacrificed all they had. His mother also has grown a strong appreciation for the Revolutionary War heroes. They followed the stories of the Culper Spy Ring organized by Benjamin Tallmadge in the Revolutionary War and visited historical sites in Valley Forge, Fort Pitt, Philadelphia, and George Washington’s home.
Jason Brooke is pleased to see each of his four children take an interest in history and travel as they leave home. He hopes they can pass that love of travel on to their own children.
Alberta Stojkovic is a correspondent for The Morrow County Sentinel. She can be reached at [email protected].
