Patricia Salter BRADSHAW

1920 - 2015

BRADSHAW,
Patricia Salter
Patricia Salter Bradshaw of Palm Beach and New York passed away peacefully at Good Samaritan Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Florida on April 20, 2015. She was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1920 and grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Her father Raymond Salter died while she was very young. She was raised by her mother Alice Salter, a professor of sociology at Coe College in Iowa. Pat graduated from Coe College in 1942 and went on to earn her PhD in Sociology from Columbia University in 1951, where she studied under Paul Lazarsfeld and Robert K. Merton. Her PhD dissertation was published and briefly made the New York Times bestseller list. She taught sociology at Columbia and worked at the Bureau of Applied Social Research at that university. She was a member of the Board of Trustees at Barnard College from 1981 to 1989. She was married to Davenport West, Jr. (now deceased) in 1941. They lived first in New York, then Teaneck and Englewood, New Jersey. She retired from academic life to raise her four sons. In 1975 she embarked on a new phase of her life with her second husband, Thornton F. Bradshaw (now deceased) who was the Chairman of RCA and prior to that, the President of Atlantic Richfield Company. She was an avid reader and writer. Over the years she contributed a number of pieces to the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post. Later in life she published a book of humorous memoirs as well as a novella. Pat was an accomplished piano player and a patron of the arts particularly the Broadway theatre, the Opera, and the Ballet. She was a member of the Bath and Tennis Club, The Everglades Club, the Palm Beach Yacht Club and The Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach. In New York she was a member of The River Club, The Century Club, The Cosmopolitan Club, and the Knickerbocker Club. She is survived by her four sons, Jeffrey West and his wife Kay, Nick West and his wife Pam, Andy West and his wife Nina, and Eric West and his wife Sandy. She is also survived by her stepchildren, Jonathan Bradshaw, Nancy Poor and Priscilla Bradshaw. In addition, she has five loving grandchildren: Davenport West IV, Virginia Blair West, Cori Phelps West, Austin West, and Grace Salter West; and two great-grandchildren, Grayson Davenport West and Ryland Jeffrey West. In addition to Scrabble, she loved to play a game with her family called "Mom Knows." Players bet whether or not Pat would know the answer to a specific question posed to her on a variety of subjects: from literature, to history, science, and politics. Her family learned to never bet against her. A service will be held for Pat on May 16, 2015 at 2:00PM at The Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach. In lieu of flowers we know that she would appreciate any small donation to The Society of the Four Arts, 2 Four Arts Plaza, Palm Beach, FL 33480.
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