I was 25 years old when my grandfather wrote this, half a lifetime ago. I couldn't be prouder of where I have come from, the lessons learned, the path wandered. He was such an inspiration to me and I owe so much of my success to him and my dad. Cheers Papa Ernie.
— Brian Crook
As I write this summary of my life I am sitting at my drafting table where I spent many hours in the forties, fifties and sixties designing boats to be built in Crook's Boat Building plant in Castro Valley.
I now am eighty-three years old and Maxine will be eighty this week. Life has been good to us and there is very little I would change.
Early Years
Some of my earliest recollections are on a twelve acre chicken ranch in Cotati, California where I was born in 1913. My mother and father moved from Lockport, New York with my brother, Dave, then seven and my brother, Charles then three years old.
My grandfather bought the ranch and gave it to my parents to operate. My grandfather was a traveling engineer for steam power plants. My sister, Ethel was born in 1915 and my sister, Edna in 1917.
Petaluma and Cotati were known as the "chicken capitals" of the world at that time and my Dad made his living on a chicken ranch. We kids were poor but happy since we had nothing to compare it with.
The ranch was pretty much self contained. We had a cow, horse, fruit trees, vegetable garden, chickens, pigs and a gasoline engine to pump water to our tank house but no electricity. Our transportation was a wagon with seats to go to church. We removed the seats to haul eggs to the poultry producers depot and bring feed back to the ranch.
Radio was quite new in those days. My brother Dave built a set with tubes and a speaker when he was only sixteen. Charlie and I built crystal sets out of paper tubes, wire, a crystal and ear phones. We would go to sleep with the ear phones and wake up with very sore ears!
The First Boat
One day while swimming a derelict canoe drifted in. I found some driftwood to use as a paddle and immediately became hooked on boating. This canoe was a double ender with stringers bent around hoops, then covered with canvas and tarred. The construction looked very simple so I decided to build one to my own specifications. In the years 1925–1926 I built two canoes, one of which was equipped with a sail.
In 1927 I built a 12 foot planked sail boat. That same year I came down with Diphtheria and was in Highland Hospital under quarantine for five weeks.
While walking to Morton Station to sell papers I passed a home where the owner was building a twenty five foot power boat. By making a pest of myself he finally agreed to sell me a three and a half horse power marine engine. As soon as I got the money I had the engine in our basement and was drawing plans for a sixteen foot planked power boat. In 1929 the boat was finished.
Crook's Boats · 1947
I was now thirty-four years old. I bought an acre of land in Castro Valley and built a shop fifty feet by eighty feet with living quarters on the front. I hired a friend that was out of work to help me and then went back into business in 1947.
One of the first orders was six carnival boats to be used at fairs and carnivals for children to ride in. We started building row boats, paddle boards, outboard runabouts, and then inboard ski boats and finally cruisers to 24 feet, both inboard and outboard. Along with Berkeley Pump Company we developed the first successful jet ski boats using the Berkeley jet system.
In developing boats from scratch a great deal of mechanical parts were required such as engine mounts and engine conversions that you could not readily buy. We developed a machine shop and would make patterns, have them cast in aluminum, steel or bronze and machine them in our machine shop. As keepsakes I still have about two hundred and fifty patterns.
The business proved to be profitable and during the years 1947 to 1970 we had a payroll of up to sixteen employees.
The SeaHaven
In 1952 we were without a family boat so I decided to build a thirty six foot auxiliary ketch. We named the boat SeaHaven and launched it in 1954. During the thirty three years that we owned that boat we spent many happy years at Steam Boat Slough on the Sacramento River. Gene Crook was ten years old at that time and claims he had no childhood. He did, however, have a hand in every phase of construction.
The Greatest Happening
The greatest happening of my life occurred in 1934 while sailing the Typhoon. Two friends and I had made dates to pick up three girls at Union Beach in Alameda and go sailing. We arrived at the beach but there were four girls. We all said to the extra girl, "Come on along." As it turned out I liked the fourth girl better than my date.
We married three years later. Maxine was seventeen and I was twenty at the time of our meeting. We have now been married fifty eight years. The extra girl, Maxine, became my wife, the mother of my daughter Carolyn, my son Eugene, my bookkeeper, my partner in business and my better half.
A Life's Motto
I think I have a motto: "Life is not worth living on this earth after you are dead, so make the most of it."
I have many things to be thankful for. First my parents and our strict religious upbringing. My wife, Maxine, who has been my partner and how we have enjoyed our life together, and our good health. My son, Gene and daughter, Carolyn, my daughter-in-law, Lynn and my son-in-law, Brad and all my grandchildren. Not one of them has ever given me any reason not to be proud of them and this I am also very thankful.