Early Life
Brinkley was born to John Richard Brinkley, a poor mountain man who practiced medicine in North Carolina and served as a medic for the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. Father Brinkley's first marriage was annulled because he was underage. After he reached adulthood, he married four more times, and outlived each of his young, pretty wives. In 1870, at the age of 42, he married Sarah T. Mingus. Later, the 24-year-old niece of Mingus moved into the house: Sarah Candice Burnett. The family called Brinkley's wife "Sally" to differentiate between the two Sarahs. Sarah Burnett gave birth out of wedlock to John Romulus Brinkley in the town of Beta, in Jackson County, North Carolina, naming her son after his father, and after Romulus, the mythical twin suckled by wolves. Sarah Burnett died of pneumonia and tuberculosis when Brinkley was five. Sarah T. "Aunt Sally" and John Brinkley moved with the young boy to East LaPorte within the same county, near the Tuckasegee River. The family had little money and lived close to the earth. John Richard Brinkley died when his son was ten years old. Young Brinkley attended a one-room log cabin school in the Tuckasegee area, held each year during three or four months of winter. There, Brinkley met Sally Margaret Wike, the daughter of a well-off school board member. When Brinkley was 13, the school term was lengthened, and a better teacher engaged. Brinkley finished his studies at 16 and began to work carrying mail between local towns, and to learn how to use a telegraph. He wished, however, to become a doctor.
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