A Life Shaped by Earth and Water Born in Newington Green, Middlesex, England, to a family of Dutch origin, the early years of Samuel Marsden Brookes were rooted in the verdant world of botany. His father managed a large nursery for exotic plants in London, a setting that likely planted the seeds of an observant eye. In 1833, the family moved across the Atlantic to settle near Chicago, seeking new opportunities for his father’s trade. As a teenager in this new American landscape, the young man found himself drawn away from the nursery and toward the sketches of traveling portrait artists. Thou…