Born in Concord in September of 1877, Mary (Maidie) Dillingham Brooks was the daughter of Judge George Merrick Brooks and Mary A. Dillingham Brooks. Richard Rice Barrett, a month older than Maidie, was the son of insurance man Richard Fay Barrett and his wife Cora Belle Rice Barrett. George Brooks and Richard Fay Barrett were both members of the Social Circle. Since the two families were near neighbors, their children could easily play together. (The Brookses lived in the big house that still sits where Sudbury Road forks off from Main Street—the present 1 Sudbury Road—and the Barretts lived across the street in the Main Street home—no longer standing—of Mrs. Barrett's adoptive father, Reuben N. Rice.)

This photograph of Maidie Brooks and Richard Barrett lounging in a hammock, with the dog of one or the other of their families stretched out nearby, captures the leisurely pleasure of childhood in summer.

In 1922, Maidie Brooks married Stedman Buttrick, and became the sister-in-law of Mary Buttrick Hoar (see #35).