Bradley contributed to outdoors, student life on campus

Harold C. Bradley, one of the first three medical professors on campus, met and married Josephine Crane when she was merely a college junior. The couple had seven sons and one daughter, Mary Cornelia, who died of spinal meningitis and pneumonia when she was only 6 years old.

Bradley and his wife donated the funds to construct the Bradley Memorial Building, originally called the Bradley Memorial Hospital in 1916.

The couple funded the hospital to research childhood diseases in memory of their first child.

The Bradleys were a tight-knit family and leaders in several conservation battles.

Bradley was known as the “godfather of skiing” in the Madison community. He constructed ski jumps in Shorewood Hills and Muir Knoll. Every Sunday in the winter months, he could be found hauling, shoveling and raking snow to prepare local hills for eager families.

It was with this spirit that he founded Hoofers in 1931. He was inducted into the Wisconsin Sports Hall of Fame in 1973.

Bradley didn’t quit skiing until his eyesight failed when he was 85 years old.

Bradley is also partially responsible for student life as we know it today. After a deadly 1908 outbreak of typhoid on campus, Bradley pronounced the need for a health facility tailored to students. University Health Services opened two years later.

He also played a crucial role in the 1925 recommendation that led to the construction of the Wisconsin Union and men’s residence halls.

He helped establish the Oxford-Cambridge method of small housing units staffed by an older house fellow.

He was also the chair of the first Fathers’ Weekend, which later became Parents’ Weekend and is still an annual campus tradition.

Bradley Hall was dedicated in 1976, the same year 97-year-old Bradley died. It is now the Bradley Learning Community.