Gladys Brooks blazed trail for other women

Gladys Brooks a former Minneapolis city councilwoman and member of the Metropolitan Council, won political offices that had once been almost exclusively the domain of men.

She died on Jan. 1 in Bloomington at age 95.

In addition to running for mayor of Minneapolis in 1973 and serving on the City Council from 1967 to 1973, she was president of Brooks/Ridder and Associates, a public-affairs consulting firm, from 1983 to 1994.

Among other honors, she was named Regional Citizen of the Year in 1984 by the Metropolitan Council, and received an honorary doctor of law degree from Hamline University in 1966.

After graduating from Washburn High School in Minneapolis, Gladys Sinclair graduated from the University of Minnesota with a bachelor's degree in international relations and economics in 1936. In the 1930s, she attended a program for students in Japan, and later as a graduate student in Switzerland, she traveled in Europe.

Her mother worked to get the vote for women in the 1920s. Her father, also interested in politics, told her, "Whatever you want to do, you can. You can do just as well as a man," she told the Star Tribune in 1993 after being honored by the Minnesota Women's Consortium as a history-making woman.

"She once helped a friend in England to campaign for the British Labor Party," recalled her daughter Diane Montgomery of Minneapolis. But prospective voters "never gave her the time of day. That really spurred her on when she returned home."

"She was very good garnering support from people for projects," said Fran Paulu of Minneapolis, former director of the International Center.

The self-described moderate Republican was instrumental in establishing the skyway system in downtown Minneapolis, and she labored to maintain city services with a shrinking revenue base.

When John Derus was a new Minneapolis city councilman, she took him and other new members under her wing.

"She wanted us to be good at what we did," said Derus.

She understood how business, government and non-profit sectors worked, and she was savvy about government finances, said Derus.

In the early 1970s, she was a leader of the GOP Feminist Caucus, and while a lobbyist in the 1980s and 1990s, pushed for action in the Legislature on women's issues.

Emily Anne Tuttle of Orono, a former Minnesota legislator, recalled women voters wondering how Brooks managed to raise her children, while campaigning for political office.

"She would take her children with her, while knocking on doors," said Tuttle.

Her husband, Wright Brooks, died in 1992.

In addition to Diane, she is survived by her other daughter Pamela Perraud of Villars, Switzerland; son, John Brooks of Minneapolis, and five grandchildren.