Bradner Littlehale died May 18, 2012, at his home in Chatham, N.J. He was 95.
Brad was born in Elizabeth, N.J., attended school in Cranford, N.J., where he went through his junior year in high school, and graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in Elizabeth. At Princeton he majored in economics and was a member of Cloister Inn. He lettered in fencing in his sophomore, junior, and senior years.
After graduation, Brad worked on Wall Street for a year and took night classes in engineering. He went to work for General Motors, and during World War II he worked on designing the Navy’s “Wildcat” fighter. After the war, he was for many years a design engineer at Foster and Allen in Chatham. There he designed machines that produced the Bic pen and the Hula Hoop.
Brad was an enthusiastic horticulturist who worked on a hydroponics system and an irrigation device that he patented. He was a member of the Old Guard of Summit and an avid bridge player, tennis player, gardener, and birder.
He is survived by his wife of 68 years, Marjorie (Gabrielson); two children, Suzanne O’Malley and her husband, and Bradner Jr., and his wife; four grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren, to whom we extend sincere sympathy.