M.D. married Megan Elizabeth BROOKS Megan (daughter of D.C. BROOKS and D.R. BARNER) was born on 21 Feb 1986 in State College, Centre Co, PA,; died on 30 Nov 2013; was buried in Saint Johns Union Cemetery - Farmers Mills. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Megan Elizabeth Brooks Vonada

Megan Elizabeth Brooks Vonada February 21, 1986 November 30, 2013 Mega
Elizabeth Brooks Vonada, 27, of Monrovia, Md., formerly of Bellefont
e, went to be with the Lord on November 30, 2013. She was born Februar
y 21, 1986 in State College, the daughter of Dale and Denise (Barner
) Brooks. She was beloved wife and soul mate of husband Matthew D. Von
ada, and fantastic mommy to her beautiful 13-month-old daughter, Madel
yn Rae, both of Monrovia, Md. She was a licensed athletic trainer/phys
ician extender at MedStar National Rehabilitation Network in Washingto
, DC and Northwood High School in Wheaton, Md. Megan was a 2004 Belle
fonte Area High School graduate, a 2008 Elizabethtown College graduat
e with a B.S. in religious studies/ethics, and a 2010 Shenandoah Unive
sity graduate with an M.S in athletic training. Megan was a member o
f Pleasant Gap United Methodist Church. Megan always saw the good in p
eople and kept a sensible head on her shoulders. Her joys were being w
ith her family, especially her precious baby girl; and you can be sur
e that Madelyn will cherish all of the nights Megan got up with her, r
olled a ball back and forth with her, and every last cuddle they share
d. She is survived by her parents and her three sisters, Corinna Brook
s and her daughter, Violet, of Boalsburg, Kylie Brooks, of Westland, M
ich. and Jordyn Brooks, of Zion. Additional survivors include her in-l
aws, Dale and Ruth (Walters) Vonada, of Farmers Mills, maternal grandp
arents, Harold and Patty Barner, of Bellefonte, Carol Barner, of Belle
fonte; and numerous aunts; uncles; cousins. Megan is predeceased by he
paternal grandparents, Luther and Violet Brooks. Even if we can't ho
ld Megan in our arms anymore, she will always be with us, surroundin
g those she knew with her presence. Friends will be received from 6-
8 p.m. Wednesday, December 4, 2013, at Mark D. Heintzelman Funeral an
d Cremation Service, 1034 Benner Pike, State College and from 9:30-1
1 a.m. Thursday, December 5, 2013, at Pleasant Gap United Methodist Ch
urch, 179 S. Main St., Pleasant Gap, PA. The funeral service will foll
ow immediately at 11:00 a. m. at the church with Pastors Thomas Osif a
d Brian Judy officiating. A graveside committal service will be at St
. John's Union Church in Farmers Mills at 2:30 p.m. In lieu of flowers
, contributions in her memory may be made to Gift of Life Donor Progra
m, 401 N. 3rd St., Philadelphia, PA 19123-4101. An on line guest boo
k can be signed or condolences sent to the family at www.heintzelmanfu
eralhome.com

Published in Centre Daily Times on Dec. 3, 2013
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Megan Elizabeth Brooks

[From Megan and Matt's wedding, June 2010]
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Birth Date: 21 FEB 1986
Birth Place: State College, Centre, PA

Death Date: 30 NOV 2013
Death Place: Danville, Montour, PA

Parents:
Dale Calvin Brooks
Denise Renee Barner

Siblings:
Corinna Grace Brooks
Jordyn Lee Brooks
Kylie Marie Brooks
Partners and Children:

Matthew Dale Vonada (m. 19 JUN 2010)
Madelyn Rae Vonada
(Add Child to this partner)

Notes on Megan Elizabeth Brooks:
Megan Elizabeth (Brooks) Vonada passed on way too early from this lif
e due to a severe aneurysm at the age of 27. This aneurysm occurred a
t her parents' house in Zion, PA on the morning after Thanksgiving 201
3. She was taken by ambulance to Mount Nittany Medical Center, then li
feflighted to Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, PA where she passe
d away the following day, November 30, at 10:29 PM.

Megan took two helicopter rides in her life: a surprise ride from th
e chapel to the reception at our wedding, and her lifeflight ride. Sh
e was absolutely terrified of helicopter rides, and uneasy about flyin
g in general. The entire ride from the chapel to the reception, organi
zed by her father, was spent gripping my hand like one of us was falli
g off a cliff. It was such a nice ride too, with beautiful views of N
ittany Mountain, Beaver Stadium, and other local landmarks. Megan refu
sed to go on helicopter rides at the Grand Canyon either time we wer
e in the vicinity, saying there was only one way she was going to be i
a helicopter again (but we were hoping it wouldn't come to that).

We loved to travel, although our traveling in the years before her dea
th were primarily to National Athletic Trainers Association (NATA) con
ferences: Las Vegas in 2013, Saint Louis in 2012, and New Orleans in 2
011. Our honeymoon in 2010 was to Sedona, Arizona. While we loved th
e natural parts of the trip best (we went on a swamp tour, to the Gran
d Canyon, to Lake Mead, and spent time on all of those vacations hikin
g), we also spent time in those cities - gambling away a few dollars
, seeing the sights, walking the boulevards. Vacations before we wer
e married included a weekend near Christmas in New York City, seeing t
own all lit up in Christmas lights, strolling in Central Park, and vis
iting the Met, a week in a secluded cabin in Saluda, North Carolina, a
d a week with friends after high school graduation in Virginia Beach
, Virginia. Many of these trips were long drives - we drove to St. Lou
is and New Orleans from central Maryland and to North Carolina from ce
tral Pennsylvania - so we spent a lot of time in the car having debat
es about politics, about religion, and about good versus evil. We mad
e a good pair, each of us contributing to a (fairly) shared philosophy
.

Megan was the oldest of four sisters (Corinna, Kylie, and Jordyn) to D
ale and Denise (Barner) Brooks. From what I remember, she was the 'qui
et one', and she was quite adept at being unnoticed, usually shying aw
ay from attention. That isn't to say she wasn't strong - she was amon
g the first girl scouts to receive a KA-BAR upon graduation rather tha
a sewing kit, and she was damn proud of that knife and what it stoo
d for.

Megan attended Bellefonte Area High School, where she played tuba (not
e that she was 5'2" and under 100 lb.) in the marching band. She adore
d the Ohio State Marching Band (which features the tuba) and at time
s wanted to go there to 'dot the I', even though we were Penn Stater
s at heart. She was a graceful and beautiful dancer at Kennedy in Bell
efonte, and later at PA Academy of the Arts in Potters Mills. She cont
inued dancing through her undergrad schooling at Elizabethtown, a smal
l liberal arts school near Harrisburg. She started her undergraduate c
areer as a biology major, but slowly found herself gravitating towar
d religious studies, which is what her final degree was in (she minore
d in biology as well). She was enthralled with cadaver lab, cutting u
p people to learn about their insides, but also was intrigued with eth
ics, how people think about religion and how that guides their action
s (or lack thereof). She worked with the athletic trainers and EMTs a
t Elizabethtown, and had previously worked with EMTs at Bellefonte, an
d sports medicine is where she ultimately found her passion.

Megan and I met in high school, I believe at a winter snowball that sh
e went to with my friend David. I wouldn't say we were immediately i
love - we weren't - but we grew on each other. We started dating aft
er Freshman year, and stayed in contact through college (I went to sch
ool in Cleveland, Ohio while she was in Eastern PA) by sending letter
s on an almost weekly basis and by calling each other for two or thre
e hours every Sunday night. Seeing some of the stuff at her funeral ma
de visitors remark that we were 'romantics,' and we very well may hav
e been called that, but our love for each other had to be very stron
g through those years to maintain the distance.

Megan applied to two grad schools for athletic training: one near Ne
w York City, and the other being Shenandoah University in Winchester
, VA, where she ultimately decided to go. I had said that I would foll
ow her wherever she decided to go, because I wasn't graduating unti
l a semester later. When she chose Shenandoah I settled in Frederick
, Maryland, halfway between her and my new workplace. Through Shenando
ah, she worked as an intern for the University of Maryland football te
am, a huge opportunity for her, and a couple high schools. While she e
joyed those experiences, she expressed interest in eventually becomin
g an athletic trainer for the performing arts so she could get back in
to the dance scene.

During this time, I proposed to Megan on a hike through the woods nea
Frederick. That was just after Christmas 2009, because I had spent t
he weeks around Christmas giving her presents that came in ring boxes
. I don't recall which necklace and earrings these would be, but I di
d find those ring boxes still with her stuff after she passed. I kno
w she had the hint that I was about to do it by the time I proposed, a
d she was so happy about starting our life together.

Our wedding in June of 2010 was almost certainly one of the happiest d
ays of her life, looking back on it. Her smile radiated like I never r
emember seeing before or after. We danced our first dance to a cover o
f 'The Best is Yet to Come' performed by Michael Buble, and I can stil
l see that precious smile staring at me during that dance. We were s
o in love...

Her favorite music was that of Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Nat King Cole
. She made me remove all of 'my' music from the reception playlist bec
ause it was 'dirty' - she needed to keep that clean image for friend
s and family. So after weeks of her begging me to put together lists o
f my music, we deleted those songs one by one after she carefully list
ened to the lyrics. Not that I really cared - I saw it as a day for he
, so I wanted her to have the music she wanted.

We honeymooned in Sedona, Arizona, spending time hiking along the re
d rocks, going to the Grand Canyon and to Phoenix. We had planned to s
ave up for a second honeymoon to Tuscany for an anniversary, but hadn'
t gotten around to it by the time she passed. After we returned from S
edona, she started her first full-time gig at Maryland SportsCare an
d Rehab in Eldersburg, Maryland, where she spent her mornings in a P
T clinic and her afternoons as an athletic trainer at Liberty High Sch
ool. While her employment situation was not ideal, she maintained tha
t she had to stay in that position for a while just because she though
t the athletes needed some consistency with their athletic trainer, an
d after all, she was doing this for those kids. So she stuck it out fo
three years, much longer than I would have, just because she though
t it was best for those student-athletes at Liberty.

In April of 2011, we bought a house in Monrovia, Maryland, about 15 mi
les from Frederick. We thought it was our dream home, and in many ways
, it was perfect for us. Megan was offered through Maryland Sportscar
e the opportunity that summer to work up in Hershey at HersheyPark a
s an athletic trainer for the park entertainers. This was more or les
s her dream job, athletic trainer for the performing arts, except tha
t we had to spend much of the summer apart. I must admit that we bot
h had a very rough summer that year, a pair of relative newlyweds spen
ding that amount of time apart. But we got through that summer and kep
t putting together our house - it took two years for us to furnish al
l of our rooms and finish painting.

In probably March of 2012, I came home to a surprise gift bag, which s
eemed out of the blue. Inside was a baby outfit, green and white wit
h little frogs on it. Megan was beside herself that she was pregnan
t - the 'baby bug' had bitten her quite hard in the prior month or two
. Megan took care of herself so well during that pregnancy, even cutti
g coffee out of her routine (a tall task). The one exception may hav
e been that she did not slow down at work, carrying way-too-large equi
pment bags up to only a couple weeks before delivery. She even still m
anaged to work one day a week up at Hersheypark as a supervisor of sor
ts, and was even on the cover of a magazine for athletic training.

On the morning of November 2, 2012, Megan woke up, probably around 6
, to go to the bathroom, then she walked back into the room and calml
y told me that she thought we should go to the hospital. She was 'pret
ty sure' her water had broken. We spent all day in the hospital waitin
g for that baby to come. Megan even got some rest in (I didn't). Final
ly, Madelyn Rae Vonada entered this world at 11:35 PM to greet two ove
joyed, albeit very tired, parents.

Megan took so much joy from being a mother. She told me every little t
hings Madelyn did with such a big smile - "She sat up all alone today,
" "She loves pushing that little things around", and "She took a few s
teps." She teased me that she was sick of Madelyn saying "da" and no
t getting the "ma" syllable down. Megan spent many nights awake with M
adelyn, she took care of Madelyn when she was sick, she did a lot of t
he dirty work associated with having a baby without much complaint. Th
at first year was still hard - a lack of sleep and disruptions to fina
ces caused a lot of stress, but we pushed on. Megan got a new job wit
h MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital in late June or early Jul
y of 2013, which provided a much-desired change of scenery to Megan an
d a nice salary bump. The commute was rough into DC, and she was openl
y upset that she didn't get to spend all the time she wanted to with M
adelyn, but she enjoyed the job and the financial security.

We had so many dreams left - we had a nice big backyard that was goin
g to get a swingset for Madelyn, where we could watch her and friend
s from the deck. We were going to have a patio with a firepit to enjo
y time relaxing outdoors. We were going to vacation in Costa Rica, i
Tuscany, in Greece, and our next plans were to spend a week or two i
2014 in a cabin in Maine. We were going to retire back to Central Pe
sylvania to be with family and return to the more relaxed atmosphere
, but I think we both knew we wouldn't wait until retirement. There wa
s so much we had left to enjoy to life, none more precious or importan
t to her than our baby girl.

Megan woke up at her parents house on the morning of November 29, 201
3 with a severe headache. Within minutes of her telling me that, she (
more or less) left us, suffering a severe aneurysm - a blood clot in t
he base of the brain. While her parents and EMTs were able to return h
er vital signs, nothing could have been done beyond that, and she offi
cially passed at 10:29 PM on November 30th. She left many loving famil
y and friends behind - the funeral director was actually sending peopl
e away from the funeral home during visitation and telling them to com
e back in an hour or two. A visitation that was officially to be hel
d from 6-8 PM went from 5:30-10 PM, with lines longer than I had eve
seen at a funeral. Megan was a beloved person - she had a soft smile
, a soft touch, and a soft heart, and people only ever took away goo
d things from her.

Megan's wishes were to have her organs donated and anything else tha
t could be donated to science should be. Through Gift of Life, we kno
w that Megan's kidneys and liver had been transplanted within days. He
heart valves, corneas, and a lot of tissue were also saved to be tra
splanted (no news there yet), and many other things like her left lun
g and blood samples were able to be used for medical research. Megan l
ives on through these donations, providing a continuing positive forc
e on our world.

We all miss Megan. A lot. Her passing has left a giant hole in our hea
ts that will be deiificult to close.

----------------------------------------------------------

Megan's obituary:

Megan Elizabeth Brooks Vonada, 27, of Monrovia, MD, formerly of Bellef
onte, went to be with the Lord on November 30, 2013. She was born Febr
uary 21, 1986 in State College, the daughter of Dale and Denise (Barne
) Brooks. She was beloved wife and soul mate of husband Matthew D. Vo
ada, and fantastic mommy to her beautiful 13-month-old daughter, Made
lyn Rae, both of Monrovia, MD. She was a licensed athletic trainer/phy
sician extender at MedStar National Rehabilitation Network in Washingt
on, DC and Northwood High School in Wheaton, MD. Megan was a 2004 Bell
efonte Area High School graduate, a 2008 Elizabethtown College graduat
e with a B.S. in religious studies/ethics, and a 2010 Shenandoah Unive
sity graduate with an M.S in athletic training. Megan was a member o
f Pleasant Gap United Methodist Church. Megan always saw the good in p
eople and kept a sensible head on her shoulders. Her joys were being w
ith her family, especially her precious baby girl; and you can be sur
e that Madelyn will cherish all of the nights Megan got up with her, r
olled a ball back and forth with her, and every last cuddle they share
d. She is survived by her parents and her three sisters, Corinna Brook
s and her daughter Violet of Boalsburg, PA; Kylie Brooks of Westland
, MI; and Jordyn Brooks of Zion, PA. Additional survivors include he
in-laws, Dale and Ruth (Walters) Vonada of Farmers Mills, maternal g
andparents Harold and Patty Barner of Bellefonte, Carol Barner of Bel
lefonte, and numerous aunts, uncles, cousins. Megan is predeceased b
y her paternal grandparents, Luther and Violet Brooks. Even if we can’
t hold Megan in our arms anymore, she will always be with us, surround
ing those she knew with her presence.

Friends will be received from 6 to 8 p. m. Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2013, a
t Mark D. Heintzelman Funeral and Cremation Service, 1034 Benner Pike
, State College and from 9:30 am to 11.00 am Thursday, December 5, 201
3 at Pleasant Gap United Methodist Church, 179 S. Main St., Pleasant G
ap, PA. The funeral service will follow immediately at 11:00 a. m. a
t the church with Pastors Thomas Osif and Brian Judy officiating. A gr
aveside committal service will be at St. John's Union Church in Farmer
s Mills at 2:30 p. m.

In lieu of flowers contributions in her memory may be made to Gift o
f Life Donor Program, 401 N. 3rd. St. Philadelphia, PA 19123-4101.

An on line guest book can be signed or condolences sent to the famil
y at www.heintzelmanfuneralhome.com

Events for Megan Elizabeth Brooks are:
Event Description Date Place Source
Birth 21 FEB 1986 State College, Centre, PA S3,
Death 10:29PM, blood clot in the brain 30 NOV 2013 Danville, Monto
ur, PA S795,
Burial Saint Johns Union Cemetery (Farmers Mills) Gregg, Centre
, PA S795,
Graduation Bellefonte Area High School 2004 Bellefonte, Centre Co
, PA S3,
Graduation Elizabethtown College 2008 Elizabethtown, Lancaster, P
A S3,
Graduation Shenandoah University 2010 Winchester, VA S3,
Occupation Athletic Trainer, Liberty High School 2010-2013 Eldersb
urg, Carroll, MD S213,
Occupation Athletic Trainer, Northwood High School 2013 Silver Spr
ing, Montgomery, MD S795,
Residence 2009-2011 Columbia, Howard, MD S213,

Sources used here:

S213: Personal knowledge of Matthew Vonada
S3: Personal knowledge of Megan E. Brooks. Uploaded directly to mattvo
ada.com and communicated through Matt Vonada
S795: Personal knowledge of Matthew Vonada

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Birth:



Died:

D.C. married D.R. BARNER [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

H.L. married C.A. ROSSMAN [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]