Overton Brooks - Death

Death

A few months after the roll call vote on enlargement of the House Rules Committee, Brooks later died of a heart attack at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. Former Shreveport Mayor James C. Gardner of Shreveport, who at the time lived only two blocks from Brooks, said in his memoirs that he believes Brooks' death was "largely a result of the strain that he experienced from the Rules Committee vote. The party had demanded a vote that had a large and vocal opposition among the congressman's constituents."

Brooks' death propelled Waggonner into the special election to choose a new representative. After winning an easy closed Democratic primary race, Waggonner faced a stronger-than-usual Republican challenger in Charlton Lyons, a Shreveport oilman originally from Vermilion Parish in south Louisiana. Waggonner nevertheless prevailed with 54 percent of the vote, having carried every parish in the district except Lyons' adopted Caddo Parish.

Brooks was a member of the Masonic Lodge, the Shriners, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Kiwanis International.

Brooks is interred at Forest Park Cemetery in Shreveport, the resting place of many Shreveport politicians. He was Episcopalian.