In Memory of our Convenor / Tobacconist: DAVID BRADLEY (1949-2002)

REMEMBERING DAVID BRADLEY
( 1949 - 2002 )
MARCH 1998 - DAVID'S REPORT ON DAYTON

Come with me out on the terrace for a last talk...
...a personal word from Gael Stahl

...and this from TheHawk...
(Our Convenor, our Tobacconist has gone on before us, taking his hiatus early. We shall miss him, but he remains in our hearts and in the lore and history of The Nashville Scholars of the Three Pipe Problem)

Fellow Nashville scholars of the three pipe problem and Nashville fresh
Rashers, David joined us on that terrace to talk yesterday at breakfast and I had a delightful chat with him on the way downtown. He went to work in pretty good spirits.

It was our last chat.

Mary Margarette Jordan went to pick him up for the Three Pipe Problem
meeting around noon today but couldn't rouse him by honking and doorbell ringing. I went over there after the meeting and found the side door unlocked but the dog barking like a guard dog and slamming the door shut in my face with his paws. Billy arrived not long after and roused David's lodger at 212B behind the house. Robert Lott knew the situation well, the dog knew him, he went up and found David dead on his bedroom floor.

It appeared he awoke in the night and was going to try to get medicine or the phone. I called 911 and they seemed to know the situation too. The fire EMTs had been there several times in the middle of the night, they said.

RASHERS at DAN'S: DAVID BRADLEY* DEAN RICHARDSON* DAVID HAYES

The upshot is that David probably died in the middle of the night.
Lott called David's sister in Sterling, Ill., and reached her son. The
police did their procedurals and found nothing amiss -- that it happened
as I described it. Billy and I are calling those who don't have e-mail and I went by Bobby Crawford's house but she wasn't home.
It will probably be some time before arrangements will be made.

Our 3PP convener has been called to a higher convocation. He did well,
was a master collector, a good friend, and the Whitland neighborhood
historian. I can think of few who were his equal for TR and presidential
campaigns collecting in this region.

I hope you'll reflect and remember and share your stories and appreciations of this man. I'll collect from what you share for inclusion in the newsletter I'm working on. Hawk will do what he can about it on the 3PP Web site.

Gael

Fellow Sherlockians and friends of David,

A few details for those who didn't know David well. He has a long
history of progressive diabetes and has been in the hospital a few times
recently (though he'd not tell church members or Sherlockian friends
until later), and his neighbor/lodger Robert Lott said David had
mentioned seeing the doctor about a heart condition recently.

He was born April 1949 and would have been 53 next month. He lived alone since his father, Dr. Bradley, a historian at Vanderbilt University died about a dozen years ago. His mother died long before that. Neither son or father drove so many of us got to see and talk with David a lot from his place on the passenger side.

As our MrsTurner (her husband Terry is our Mrs Hudson) Margaret Widlake at the Sherlock Holmes Pub said when I called her last night, "David was here with y'all Wednesday night. He brought silent movie video tapes" (for someone at the Pub) the night a bunch of us gathered to chat and eat with Susan Diamond of Chicago, who was in town to give lectures on financial planning at the Vanderbilt Crowne Plaza hotel.

I was so lucky to be asked by Billy Wednesday night whether I wanted to pick up Susan or David on my way to the Pub. David was on my way there --and on my way home -- so it was my last chance to be his John Clay hansom driver from/to his house. Friday I picked him up at the downtown bus station for breakfast and dropped him off at work (across the street from my office).

I mention that as a typical way so many of us interacted weekly with David. He was family. Hawk often takes him to work. Al Thomason often brings him to meetings. Bill is well acquainted with his furiously barking dog. He was part of the et cetera of our lives and sang the songs of life and death with us.

David's only kin is his sister Ann who lives near Chicago. Billy called Robert Lott after Lott talked to her and Billy then called her. He offered our services to her to help in cleaning up David's house, helping her sort things out, she suggested pall bearing at the funeral, memorial service, etc. There is probably not much use to send flowers so Billy suggested two alternatives: a donation in David's name to the John Bennett Shaw in Minneapolis or what I like better, to the John Watson Fund, in the name of David who was in some ways our puckish Dr. Watson, although his chosen 3PP nom when I invested him in 1988 was "Tobacconist
Bradley."

I'd have sworn he was part of us earlier. Perhaps that's just his invested date. David was David, not your Mayberry or Beaver type. He was marvelously self-contained -- out-going in his own way -- an eccentric. A Sherlockian-- but I repeat myself.

I learned only yesterday how very involved he was at his church from
Mary Margarette Jordan. He was their convener as he was ours. It was he who organized the volunteers and activities for the church's outreach
charity program (or something like that). He was a great participator and convener for the Whitland area historic neighborhood events (some of the famous Vanderbilt Fugitive litterateurs lived there).

His Gillette collection and interest in NYC theater was amazing to naifs
like me. He often when on the Broadway tour of plays. His visits to
Gillette Castle were memorable and he brought back memorabilia from it to us.

We'll miss him at our weekly breakfast tables, our monthly Pub sessions,
and all the events in between. He played the hand he was dealt as well as he could, and we'll remember him fondly. We commit him to his Maker, Gillette, and those denizens of 221B where it is still 1895 per omnia saecula saeculorum, keeping the memory green.

Gael Stahl (Sunday, 17 March: St. Patrick's Day)

The following appeared in the Obituary Column of The Tennessean
16 March 02

David BRADLEY

March 16, 2002
Nashville, TN
Died March 16, 2002. He worked as Research Assistant for the Tennessee State Legislature for nearly 30 years. Survived by sister, Anne Bradley Gronbach and her husband Phil, Sterling, IL; niece and nephew, Karen Gronbach and Michael Gronbach, Sterling, IL; maternal aunt Peg Daly, East Hampton, CT; and many, many friends. His remains are at the Broadway Chapel of Roesch Patton Funeral Home where the family will receive friends on Wednesday from 5 to 8 p.m. Funeral services will be conducted at Blakemore United Methodist Church at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, March 21, 2002 with Rev. Michael Williams of officiating. His body will lie in state at the church on Thursday from 9:30 a.m. until service time. Entombment will be at Harpeth Hills Prayer Mausoleum. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Blakemore United Methodist Church. ROESCH PATTON AUSTIN BRACEY & CHARLTON, Broadway Chapel, 1715 Broadway, 244-6480.