Here’s another post on the family of Richard Martin Bradshaw (1882 – 1957),  focusing on his daughter Eileen. It’s a great story.  Thanks once again to Jerry Juracich for writing this.   All the words below are his. It’s such a great piece, with so much detail, I wouldn’t presume to change a thing.  

Here’s a link to the first post about Richard (Brad) Bradshaw

How Eileen met her dad, Richard Bradshaw

In 1918 Eileen Evelyn Bradshaw was born in Alamosa Colorado.  Her mother, Myrtle Chase and Eileen’s father, Richard M Bradshaw divorced before Eileen’s earliest recollections.  What Eileen knew of her father came from whatever her mother told her.  Eileen lived with her mother, Myrtle until Myrtle died of breast cancer in 1927.  No one knew how to find Eileen’s dad, Richard, so after her mother’s death Eileen lived with her mother’s people, the Chases in north east California and Southern Oregon.   The Chases were poor people and none could afford to give her a permanent home.  Eileen lived with one aunt and uncle after another until she finished high school.  Eileen then attended St. Joseph’s Hospital College of Nursing in San Francisco and graduated with her RN.

In 1940, Eileen married John N Juracich.  At the time Eileen was in St. Joseph Nursing School and John was in the Navy.  Sometime after this, the ship John was on was torpedoed and sunk and the crew was forced to abandon ship.  John and many of his fellow crewmen were rescued.    A few years after this, when John had reached the rank of W-4 warrant officer, John was on another ship that got torpedoed and sunk off the coast of Italy.  After being rescued, based on his previous experience, John knew of the chaos that would follow.  As an officer, John was able to send a telegram to Eileen telling her he was okay.  In the ensuing chaos the Navy listed John among the dead and the San Francisco papers carried the story.  Because John had been erroneously reported as dead, when he got out of the Navy, the San Francisco newspapers did a brief bio on him.  The bio included the fact that he and his wife, the former Eileen Bradshaw now had a son.

Richard Bradshaw left Colorado and ended up in the San Francisco bay area in California.  Somewhere along the way Richard married Edna Cresswell.  Edna saw the article in the San Francisco newspaper along with Eileen’s maiden name, Bradshaw.  She realized this could be the long lost daughter her husband had told her about.  At that time Richard and Edna had a summer place in Almaden, California, about 25 miles from Los Altos, where John and Eileen lived.  Father and daughter reunited.  Of course there was some mistrust at first, but over the years they became very close.  When Richard could no longer live alone he moved in with John and Eileen and spent his final years in their home.

Told by Jerry Juracich, Eileen’s son.