Sam did in fact pass away due to the flu epidemic. I was told just this past weekend as to hoe Elizabeth passed, but so much has happened, I do not remmber.

Greetings All,

Resurfacing for an all too brief moment and noticed this thread. It's very sad news about Skip Bradbury. Poor Ray. He has endured so much in the last six months. Maggie. Julie Schwartz. Now, his one and only brother. Still, Ray Bradbury's spirit is indefatigable. Anointed by the tip of an Excalibur sword, Ray Bradbury will endure.

I interviewed Skip several times in the last few years and he was always very gracious and had a terrific sense of humor. It became apparent to me that Leonard and Esther Bradbury raised two very kind, polite, and gentle boys.

As for questions about Ray and Skip's sister, Elizabeth "Betty Jane" Bradbury. She passed away from influenza on February 8, 1928. She was just shy of being a year old.

[This message has been edited by Sam Weller (edited 04-10-2004).]

Sam Weller:

Thanks, Sam. Ray's source of energy and hope go deeper than he realizes. What a gift he is to the world of literature.

It's interesting that his sister died in 1928... yet he ends '''Dandelion Wine''' with a triumphant 1928. Love covers a great hurt with endurance.

Thanks so much, Sam and Nard!

It's indeed sad to hear that Skip passed away. I'm so sorry that I never had a chance to meet him. Anita and I spent the afternoon with Ray the following Monday, and he told us Skip died around the same time Ray was accepting his award at the OUT OF THIS WORLD tribute. It's been such a time for loss in Ray's wondrous universe --- from Maggie and Julie to his old friend Peter Ustinov and even Win-Win, one of the last two cats in the Bradbury household. Ray recently read the wire-service piece I wrote on Charles Bronson's death. He surprised me by saying they were old friends as well. "He used to live a few doors away from us, before he hit it big," he said. "We attended PTO meetings together." Such amazing connections ... Ray sold newspapers to John Barrymore and Buster Keaton, swam with Charlie Laughton, drank with Huston and Peckinpah and attended PTO meetings with Charles Bronson!

On Easter I called Ray up and asked how he was doing. He said, "I'm doing fine, but I've had a rough week. My brother died." I said I heard that and was very sorry. I asked when he last saw his brother and he said, "Oh, about a year ago. I talked to my brother on the day he died and was able to tell him I loved him." I said, "So it was very sudden?" "Well, he had a heart condition."

It seems that besides other previously-mentioned matters, I may also have been misled/misinterpreted/misunderstood Ray's relationship with his brother. I wrote (and I'm not going back and edit it now) that they never got along. Perhaps closer to the truth would be that they may have gone through periods of not getting along, but reconciled, or that since Donn is a very different personality type, somewhat high-strung and demonstrative, he may have interpreted any reserve in Skip's manner as dislike or unfriendliness. Sam says Skip was always polite and pleasant. Ray also asked if I'd been in contact with Donn. I said not lately. It's possible Ray thought I heard about his brother through Donn--almost my only source before the internet!

Ray asked as usual what was going on with me. I said obviously I hadn't finished a chapter that week as I was getting ready for Easter. My entire family were here and I also had church and so on, but I wasn't going to feel too bad over it, just pick up and go on with it.

He said he had to go as his daughters were there for Easter dinner. I had called what I thought of as late enough in the evening to be well past dinner, but he insisted, "It's EARLY here!" He sounded okay, not in high spirits but pretty good spirits.