Ronald H. Breland

It is with deep sadness that I announce the passing of my father, Ron Breland, this past Thursday on September 8, 2022. He had succumbed to a very aggressive cancer that struck him suddenly and swiftly. Mercifully he passed in peace near his home in West Nyack, NY.
Ronald Hargrove Breland was born January 15, 1940 in Manhattan, NY and spent the better part of his life in West Nyack, where he raised his daughter, Cindy, and built a life with my Otti – his wife of more than 56 years. He graduated from Rutgers University in 1962 and later joined the U.S. Marine Corps for a short stint where he was promoted to Private First Class in 1964. He met Otti soon after leaving the Corps, and they were married in 1966.
After working at the Rockland Journal News, he showed a talent for photography and was hired as a commercial photographer for the Manhattan advertising agency McCaffrey and McCall. He worked there until 1988, and shortly after turned to pursue his true passion in life: beekeeping and biodynamic gardening. He and Otti then formed Bumps & Co., a small boutique nursery where they raised and sold heirloom plants and vegetables for the next three decades.
Perhaps second only to his passion for bees and gardening, was his camp in the Adirondacks. A direct descendent of one of the original founding members of the Jordan Club, he had been coming to Hollywood since he was tiny. Self-described as Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, Ron and his brother Prentis, spent every summer with their mother Dorothy Cook Breland running free in the wonderful wilds surrounding the Raquette River. As Ron would often tell everyone, his mother would pick them up on the last day of school before summer, drive to camp and not return until it was time to begin the new school year. Needless to say, the Adirondacks and Hollywood were in Ron's blood. He was a pillar of the Jordan Club and his spirit will be felt forever in this special place the club has carved out along the edges of the Carry Falls Reservoir.