Raymond Kenyon "Ken" Bradt Jr.

1942 - 2025

Raymond Kenyon "Ken" Bradt, Jr.

Amherst, MA - Raymond Kenyon Bradt, Jr., died at Cooley Dickinson Hospital, in Northampton, MA, on February 10, 2025, at age 82. His partner and the hospital chaplain were by his side and Bach's cello Suite No. 1 in G Major played in the background.

Ken was born December 7, 1942, in Rochester, MN, to Raymond Kenyon Bradt, Sr., D.V.M., and Josephine Clemons Bradt. For his first four years, Ken and his mother lived with her parents on their southern Minnesota farm, while his father served in World War II, in the U.S. Army Veterinary Corps. When Dr. Bradt returned, he moved his family to his hometown of Fort Dodge, IA, and opened his veterinary practice. Growing up, Ken spent many summers on the farm, helping with the work, and, as an adult, he spent many summers in Fort Dodge, helping his parents. All his life, his emotional connection to both homes was deep. When he moved east for graduate school, New Haven felt emotionally and spiritually cold to him, and he would dream of digging his hands into the rich black soil of Iowa and Minnesota.

Ken was preceded in death by his parents and his brothers Charles Bradt and Frank Bradt. He is survived by his partner of 32 years, Margaret Smith, his brother John Bradt, his sister Elizabeth Bradt, his sister M. Suzanne Parsons, and eight nieces and nephews and their families.

Ken earned a B.A. in philosophy and an M.A. in theology from the University of Notre Dame and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in philosophical theology from Yale University. He was proud of his Yale doctorate, but Notre Dame had his heart, and Notre Dame football was a source of great pleasure throughout his life. He taught for one year each at Earlham College and the University of Virginia and sixteen years at Hampshire College, where most of his classes focused on close studies of major texts in Western and Asian philosophy and religion. Ken took keen pleasure in teaching students who shared his delight in rigorous and imaginative intellectual exploration. He often prepared for class by walking in the hills above Hampshire, carrying a volume of, say, Heidegger, or Aristotle, or Lao Tzu, rereading and rethinking. Ken was known for his warmth, gentle manner, and deeply reflective way of speaking, his lengthy advising sessions, his integrity, his independent spirit, and the mighty splash his 6'5" frame made when he dove into the pool and freestyled across.

His former student Bill Schockner characterized Ken's classes as "challenging--intense but exhilarating" and says that as the advisor for his final project, Ken was "exacting, but [the project] was some of the best work I've done." Former student Justin West described Ken as a "creative, inquiring, dedicated, and original" teacher, adding, "He would re-create philosophical thought right in front of the students rather than lecturing about it." And former student David J. Stern wrote, "I took every course he taught....His mind was vast--and it was a mind filled with heart. It was also filled with an encyclopedic knowledge of the world's wisdom traditions. He was an original and creative thinker. Sitting in a class with Ken, I felt held in that vast and warm mindspace."

Colleague Abraham Ravett wrote, "He was a kind, generous, compassionate human being," and Robert Meagher, who often co-taught with Ken, counts himself among the many who "revered and learned from his deep learning and wisdom."

After leaving Hampshire, Ken returned to the dissertation he'd begun before teaching consumed his energies. In 1995 he completed his Yale doctorate with a dissertation on Hegel's theology. The years following were spent with his partner, Margaret, in Alabama, Indiana, and Connecticut, where Margaret taught English and Ken continued writing. He published an article of academic theology in the journal Soundings and also left behind a handful of poems, an unfinished work of fiction, and many hundreds of pages of the central writing project of his life, an unfinished work of original theology entitled, in part, "The Discourse of the Divine Word....: An Incarnational Theontology."

In his last eight years or so, Ken lived with Alzheimer's, and five years before he died, he and Margaret moved back to Amherst. One of his greatest pleasures in this last chapter of his life was walking in the woods, where he delighted in the branches moving in the wind, the squirrels, the birds, the other walkers who would stop to chat, and the dogs that Ken would pat and pat and pat.

Deep thanks go to Mary Jane Scott; Jenna Dupre; Dr Rebecca Starr, MD, AGSF; Karen Romanowski, RN; and the staff at Linda Manor Assisted Living LEP.

Arrangements have been entrusted to Graham Funeral Home of Easthampton, MA.

Family and friends are invited to a celebration of Ken's life, to be held on Sunday, June 29, 1-4 PM, at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst, 121 N Pleasant St, Amherst, MA. A program of remarks and readings will be followed by finger food, looking at photos, and visiting. If you would like to speak at the gathering or play a musical instrument, please contact Margaret at msmith4@bsu.edu. If you have a digital photo of Ken to share or would like to speak through a short video (less than 3 minutes), that material must arrive by May 1. Please email Margaret (msmith4@bsu.edu), who will send you instructions on how to prepare and deliver your material.