Francis Bradley "Brad" Lynch

CENTERVILLE — Francis Bradley "Brad" Lynch, 81, of Centerville, died peacefully at home on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2008, after a brief battle with lung cancer.

Mr. Lynch was born in Boston on Aug. 6, 1927, the son of the late William S. and Katharine Brady Lynch, and raised in Cambridge, New York City and Bronxville, N.Y. He was an Army Service veteran at the end of World War II and a graduate of Bronxville High School and Williams College, class of 1949.

He started his career in the early 1950s as a reporter on the Fall River Herald News. After two years, he joined the public relations department of The Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. in Fall River and then Akron, Ohio. Subsequently, as president of Rumrill-Hoyt Public Relations in Rochester, N.Y., and New York City, he provided public relations counseling and service for 15 years to national corporations and non-profit associations. Later, he became vice president for corporate communications of the N W Ayer Inc. Advertising Agency in New York.

In 1965, Mr. Lynch was in the first group of executives to be elected to accredited membership in the Public Relations Society of America. He was a director of the National Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers and the New York Council on Alcoholism, as well as public relations chairman of the American Association of Advertising Agencies. He and his family lived in Rowayton and Westport, Conn., for most of the 35 years he worked in New York.

Following his retirement from N W Ayer in 1990, Mr. Lynch was hired as director of public relations for The Advertising Council in New York. The Ad Council is the organization that, with advertising agencies and media companies, coordinates public service campaigns to gain support for messages that meet health, safety, education, and other human needs. He was a longstanding member of the Williams Club of New York.

After commuting to Cape Cod from Manhattan year round on weekends for more than 20 years, he retired from the Ad Council in 1994 and became a full-time resident on the Cape, a freelance reporter for the weekly Barnstable Patriot in Hyannis, and an avid amateur artist.

Mr. Lynch was married June 7, 1952, to Charlotte Andrews of Fall River. He is survived by his wife and children, Sarah Katharine Lynch Faldetta and her husband, Thomas J. Faldetta, M.D., of Sherborn, Richard Andrews Lynch and Stephen Brady Lynch, both of Los Angeles, and William Alan Lynch of Derby, Conn.; two grandchildren, Ross Andrew Faldetta and Kimberly Frances Faldetta of Sherborn; a brother, James Brady Lynch of Little Compton, R.I.; and a sister, Emily Cunneen Barrett of Harwich Port, as well as many nieces and nephews.

A funeral Mass will be held on Friday, Sept. 26, at 11 a.m., at Our Lady of Victory Church, 230 S. Main St., Centerville. Burial at a later date will be at St. Patrick's Cemetery, Fall River.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to The VNA of Cape Cod-Hospice & Palliative Care, 434 Route 134, Suite G1, South Dennis, MA 02660, and/or The Fall River Historical Society, 451 Rock St., Fall River, MA 02720.

Arrangements are in the care of the Waring-Sullivan Homes of Memorial Tribute, Fall River.