Birth date: Aug 2, 1946 Death date: Aug 2, 2024
Bradley Stratton was called peacefully to God on August 2, his 78th birthday. Beloved husband for 54 years to Carolyn (nee Hoover). Loving father to Jennifer (Craig) of Cypress and Matthew who preceded him in death. Loving grandfa Read Obituary
I first met Brad while playing Little League baseball in Houston in a time when folks did not lock doors or windows. My Dad was the coach and Brad spent time in our back yard learning to be a great pitcher.
We also attended the same high school with Brad being a year ahead of me.
We lost touch wit one another after high school but reconnect when we both joined a knife collecting organization. We both spent time on the board together and became reacquainted.
Brad was basically the same guy I knew in high school for the most part. If Brad liked you, and you were arrested, he would go to jail with you to keep you company and keep you laughing — he was just a great guy.
He liked to talk about the time, while in the navy, he ate a thousand year old egg and got exceptionally ill. His buddies got him back on board ship and a medic got him through the worst. His C.O. Never found out what happened as his action could have been a court marshal.
Brad and I served on the Houston Gun collectors board of Directors. We also were part of a gun club that shot together weekly. Many a discussion was had over a person’s target. Was someone shooting groups or patterns.
The last unofficial group that we belonged to was made up of a group of friends that we named “The Over The Hill Bunch”. At Brad’s urging we even had membership cards made up, NOTE: Carolyn renamed use the “Sewing Circle” and that moniker stuck. Many a story and many a lag was shared by this group. And I cannot imagine a good group like this without Brad.
I am a better and happier person for having known Brad.
I knew Brad through our love of guns and history. We had been on the board of the HGCA, and not always in complete agreement on issues. But that did not affect our friendship. Wish that was a skill known in America today. One of my favorite memories of Brad was at one of our monthly meetings. We had a historian from one of the museums in San Antonio come over and talk to us. He started off saying that he was going to give us a quiz to see what we knew. The historian started asking questions and immediately several people started yelling out the answers. Brad was one of these. The historian was looking increasingly frustrated. Finally the historian asked "Can you name a lawman with a connection to El Paso. People started yelling out names again, a lot of names. A name was mentioned and someone objected to it as the man, a famous gunfighter, had indeed been in El Paso and killed someone - but he was not a lawman Agreement was reached as it was pointed out that while not known as a lawman, the gunfighter for a very short time was a lawman in another town. At that time, the frustrated historian gave up trying to stump us, and started his talk. Can't you just see Brad having fun during that quiz time?
Douglas Plaisted
