Pedigree of:
William Werner Bradford
1905-1976

Lucinda
MILLER
1851-1939 		= Hampton
WERNER
1848-1885 		Ellen Jane
KNIGHT
1839-1899 		= James Henry
BRADFORD
1836-1913

Ida Florence
WERNER
1881-1930 		= Harry Bonnell
BRADFORD
1870-1952

William Werner
BRADFORD
1905-1976

Notes and Links

William Werner Bradford; b. Nov. 25, 1905, Kensington MD; d. Feb. 9, 1976, St. Michaels MD.

Brief Biography:

William Werner, was known familiarly to everyone as "Bill". During his youth, he spent many of his summers in the mountains of WV and MD among his mother's relatives. During one summer his father was so concerned that Bill would hurt himself working in a rickety sawmill that he motored from Washington in his stylish Reo automobile and took him back to Washington protesting that Bill's employer was exploiting him as "child labor". Bill graduated from Central High School of Washington DC in 1923, then he enrolled in West Virginia University at Morgantown WV, to study engineering in 1923 to 1925. But, he found his talents were in music and business promotion. After about two years in Morgantown he returned to Washington DC and after two years of odd jobs he transferred to the George Washington University, where he attended classes from 1926 to 1929. His younger brother, Henry, was also enrolled there. During this period he was spending his evenings as a performing artist on the Jazz piano and singing at various night clubs, working as a part-time accountant for a bank, taking art courses at the Corcoran School and completing a course in Foreign Service at a private school in Georgetown.

He married his classmate, Christine Bannerman (1908-1970), on Nov. 2, 1929, shortly after the great stock market crash. His parents would have preferred that he stay in college through graduation, so he and Christine eloped, had a "confidential" marriage in Frederick MD, then he accepted a position as an Assistant Trade Commissioner in Accra, Gold Coast, West Africa. In only a few years, the Commerce Department, under which he was employed, suffered a substantial budget cut as the great depression set in. Bill and Christine then traveled extensively, and settled in Langley VA, where they raised their two children.

William Werner "Bill" Bradford established a sales business, McGregor & Werner, Inc. based on his knowledge of government bureaucracy acquired during the depression. He was President of this company for ten years until it employed some 400 people and was doing many millions of dollars in business. He sold this business and acquired control of the Letterex Corp., which had been a subsidiary of McGregor & Werner based on his invention of the Letterex product. This latter business was merged into Allied Paper, where he briefly held the title of Vice President until it was merged into SCM Corp. After another period of extensive travel he formed the Washington Waterproofing Company, which changed from a service business into a real estate holding company. He retired in 1962 and devoted time to his wife, Christine, who was suffering from cancer since 1955. Christine died in 1970, and Bill married her sister, the widow, Mary (Bannerman) Brett-Surman. They lived in retirement in St. Michaels MD on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay.

There is much more information about Bill and his family in the Bradford genealogy by Bradford Stone. The Bannerman family, which has an illustrious ancestry, is more extensively described, and both Bill and his second wife, Mary, have written autobiographical sections.

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