Fabian Bradbury Obituary

Fabian Bradbury was a close friend, I am proud to recall, when we were growing up together in Cambridge, MA so many years ago. It is sad to realise that we have not been in touch for 50 years and not kept up the friendship I remember so fondly.



All the very best to all his family members.



Mickey Born

To all who knew Fabian (Brad) Bradbury:



My father was a curious man to say the least. Born Dec. 11, 1929 in Orange, NJ, of Marvel Fabian and Kenneth L. Bradbury, he was raised in Rhode Island. He attended Harvard University until 1950 when his oldest son Phillip was born in Norwalk, CT. There was much of the New England Yankee in Fabian. He had an amazing capacity for remembering the smallest details about a subject, usually history, which was his favorite. Stories of his early days selling advertising were also a favorite. We moved to Portland, Oregon in 1956 where he was employed by Georgia Pacific. Some of his best anecdotes surround the logging truck which toured the country displaying a massive Redwood tree as a promotion for GP. He loved trees and to this day had a membership in the National Arbor Day Foundation. There is a fingerling spruce in his refridgerator at the time of writing.



Fabian suffered from high blood pressure and died as a result of heart failure in his apartment at the Rush-Barton Senior Residence.



Not many people know he was a chorister as a young boy. As an only child, he traveled around New England with his father, Kenneth, a stock broker, in the 1930's and had visited nearly every small town throughout Maine, Massachusettes, Connecticut and New Hampshire. He was very fond of travelling and last toured France and Scotland with his friend Theresa Arnold.



He was an avid outdoorsman in his younger days, being a Little League coach in California in the 1960's and active in the Boy Scouts of America as well during that time. Our greatest adventure was driving cross country in 1956 from Belmont, MA to Portland, OR in a 1953 Ford (with Overdrive) stopping at every outlook and National Park to observe nature and the grandeur of the American lanscape. (He was always grateful to the Native Americans who assisted us somewhere in North Dakota after suffering a cracked glass fuel bowl.) There were no Interstate highways at that time, it was US 30 all the way with Burma Shave signs in abundance.



He married Nancy Jane Phillips in 1949 and worked for a short time in a Coca Cola bottling plant. He often commented that the secret formula must contain prune juice.



Regardless of the ups and downs of their marriage, he mourned the loss of Nancy in 1986 at 57 years, and not a day would pass without a tender remembrance of their time spent together.



Fabian was proud of his family ancestry and taught his children the same respect for our forebears. A man of a different era, he will be missed by his children. If the Zebra Lounge is still operating,

may a toast be raised in his honor.



I thank you in advance for your kind thoughts and remembrances.



Timothy B. Bradbury

saddened to see fabian passed away. when i first started working downtown as a teen he took me under his wing and showed me the ropes. i always enjoyed his company and the hours spent at the zebra lounge with all the usual suspects.

Offering our deepest condolences during this difficult time.