Anderson, K. Brooke (Karl Brooke).

Karl Brooke Anderson was born on August 31, 1892 in Goochland County, Virginia. A high school drop-out, he conditionally entered the University of Richmond and graduated in 1916. He attended graduate school at Cornell, but left in 1917 and enlisted and served for two years during World War I with the French Army Ambulance Service, for which he was awarded the Silver Star.

Anderson then joined the YMCA to work with prisoners in France. With the British YMCA, he went to the Middle East in 1919 and worked in prisoner of war camps in Syria, Palestine and Egypt. In 1921, he contracted malaria and had to return to the U.S. He entered Yale Divinity School and graduated in 1924. After graduation he became the executive secretary of the University of Virginia YMCA, a post he held for four years. In 1928, he departed for Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island and became executive secretary at the student YMCA, where he remained until his retirement in 1957.

In December of 1949, he took a five month leave from Brown to work with the American Friends Service Committee distributing aid to Palestinian refugees on the Gaza Strip. After his retirement in the fall of 1957, Anderson returned to Gaza to work with refugees under the auspices of the Near East Council for Refugee Work, which was affiliated with the Church World Service.

From the guide to the K. Brooke Anderson papers, 1919-1980, (bulk 1949-1959)., (University of Minnesota. Kautz Family YMCA Archives. [ymca])