Nina Leopold Bradley (1917 – 2011)
Nina Leopold Bradley died on the morning of May 25, 2011, after 93 years of an exceptional life. She was with her family at her home on the Aldo Leopold Reserve near Baraboo, Wis., surrounded by the wildness she loved and helped restore.
She was born in 1917 in Albuquerque, N.M., the third child of famed conservationist Aldo Leopold and Estella Bergere Leopold. Beginning in 1935, Nina spent many happy weekends with her family at the Leopold shack near Baraboo, participating in one of the world’s first wildland restoration projects.
Along with her second husband, Charles Bradley, she rekindled the “axe-in-hand” philosophy of her father, establishing the Bradley Study Center on the Leopold Reserve along the Wisconsin River in 1976. This work included creation of a graduate ecological research program in cooperation with the University of Wisconsin and expansion of the land restoration and phenological observation that her family had begun so many years ago. The work of Nina and Charles was also instrumental in the establishment of the Aldo Leopold Foundation and the construction of the Leopold Legacy Center.
Nina will be remembered as a scientist, conservationist, philosopher and humanitarian, as well as for her boundless generosity, wisdom and grace. She has been and will remain an inspiration to all.
Nina is survived by her sister, Dr. Estella Leopold of Seattle, Wash.; her daughters, Nina Loeffel and Trish Stevenson of Wisconsin; her stepchildren, Charles Bradley Jr. of Portage, Wis., and Dorothy Bradley of Clyde Park; along with many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
She was preceded in death by her brothers, Starker, Luna, and Carl.