Biographical Sketch of Dr. Brooks Barnwell Glover
April 29, 1857 – January 3, 1940
Brooks Barnwell Glover was born near Warren, Bradley County Arkansas on April 29, 1857. The 1860 census lists him in the farming family of John B. and Lucy A. Glover living in Pennington, Bradley, Arkansas as does the 1870 census.
He attended public school in Randall, Cleveland County. In the 1880 census the family is in Whiteville, Dorsey, Arkansas. On March 23, 1881 Barnwell B Glover was appointed Postmaster of Randall, Cleveland, Arkansas. “He first studied and practiced medicine under a neighborhood physician, Dr. W. O. Bunn, as the laws of the state permitted it then.”1 Brooks’ occupation is physician in Whiteville in the 1900 census. In the 1906 American Medical Directory Brooks is shown to have attended medical school in Arkansas but the information regarding graduation was not obtained. However other sources cite that he began attending the Arkansas Medical College where he took the required hours of lectures. By 1910 Brooks is married and he and his wife Nannie have three children and an adopted son at home. Brooks continued to practice medicine in Cleveland county for the remainder of his life, a span of 56 years. His obituary noted “He had practiced medicine in the Randall community for 56 years and was one of the few remaining doctors who continued to make his calls on horseback, continuing his practice on horseback until five days before his death when he became ill.”2
Brooks obviously had a sense of humor based on the following story, “While talking with Dr. A.B. Robertson one day, Dr. Glover, who talked in a whisper, said the very best pills I have are flower and water rolled in chocolate. These pills always do so much good, and they always come back for more”3
Dr. Glover’s obituary stated when he died he was the oldest doctor in Cleveland county. He was an honorary life member of the Culpepper Masonic lodge at Rison and was a member of the Pleasant Ridge Baptist church. He passed away on January 3, 1940 and is buried in Friendship Cemetery, Friendship, Cleveland County, Arkansas.
1 Heflin, Janice, “Country Doctor.” The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 4, 1953, pp. 393-393. www.jstor.org/stable/40037948.
2newspaper obituary, publisher unknown
3 “Medical Care in Cleveland County, Arkansas through 1990”, page 11,
published by the Cleveland County Historical and Genealogical
Society, October 2009
John T. Mitchell
November 21, 2020