Robert Whitmore Bradford ’43
Robert Whitmore Bradford ’43 died May 25, 2014. Bob grew up in Melrose, Massachusetts, and graduated from Melrose High School, where he was a member of the Dramatics Club and editor of the school paper. At Dartmouth Bob was an English major and a member of the German Club. At the end of his junior year he joined the Army Air Force and served as a weatherman and communication specialist in the China-Burma-India theater. After discharge in 1946 Bob returned to Dartmouth for a delayed senior year. He graduated with honors in English and was named a Rufus Choate scholar. He then went on to earn an M.S. from Columbia and a Ph.D. in American literature from Syracuse University. He was a professor of English at Lafayette College from 1953 until his retirement in 1985. A true scholar, Bob was recognized at Lafayette with a distinguished teaching award and a Jones Faculty Lectureship. He coedited the E.B. White Reader along with William Whyte Watt. A theater lover, Bob co-scripted and participated in many faculty plays and other dramatic productions. After retirement Bob and his wife, Mary, whom he married in 1944, moved to Edgeriver Farm in Whitefield, Maine. They raised a herd of Suffolk sheep, several cows, flocks of chickens and an occasional pig. Bob’s wife, Mary, died in 2011. He is survived by children Martha Jane (and husband Alfred), R. Verne ’72 (and wife Martha) and John (and companion Laurette) as well as two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
