Bob Bradshaw, a Sedona cowpuncher, movie maker and noted nature photographer, died Friday, Aug. 8.
He was 90 years old.
Born June 9, 1918, in what is now known as Xiamen, China, Bradshaw once boasted he had “the dubious distinction of being the only cowpuncher in the world who can sing ‘Jesus Loves Me’ in Chinese.”
According to his autobiography, “The Sedona Man: The Life and Adventures of An Arizona Cowboy,” Bradshaw left China with his parents at the age of 4 and settled in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1922, where he lived a “Huckleberry Finn” childhood.
Bob Bradshaw, a Sedona cowpuncher, movie maker and noted nature photographer, died Friday, Aug. 8.
He was 90 years old.
Born June 9, 1918, in what is now known as Xiamen, China, Bradshaw once boasted he had “the dubious distinction of being the only cowpuncher in the world who can sing ‘Jesus Loves Me’ in Chinese.”
According to his autobiography, “The Sedona Man: The Life and Adventures of An Arizona Cowboy,” Bradshaw left China with his parents at the age of 4 and settled in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1922, where he lived a “Huckleberry Finn” childhood.
He didn’t care for school, but his parents encouraged his love of the outdoors by giving him books on insects and snakes, specimens of which he collected and stored in glass jars in the family’s basement.
Bradshaw wrote that alcoholic beverages repulsed him as the result of a childhood trauma when he and boyhood friends discovered the body of an alcoholic who had been hit by a train while drunk.
The experience caused him to make “a positive life decision from a dark situation.” He never drank.
As a child, he stood near Charles Lindbergh when Lindbergh landed his airplane, “The Spirit of St. Louis,” in Cleveland and watched Babe Ruth play baseball when the Yankees and the Indians faced off.
“When [Ruth] came to bat, there was pandemonium in the park,” he wrote.
Bradshaw bought his first 35mm camera in 1936 for $12.50 and learned how to develop film and make prints, even before he graduated from high school.
After graduating, during the depths of the Great Depression, Bradshaw set out on an odyssey that eventually took him to all four corners of the United States before he eventually settled in Sedona, with his first wife, Beatrice.
Bradshaw worked construction, cared for fox and mink at a fur farm, hammered out truck and car parts at an aluminum factory and worked at many other jobs all across the nation in places as diverse as Seattle, Miami, San Diego, and for a time, a small town in Massachusetts.
He hopped freight trains and hitchhiked in search of work as a young man, always taking snapshots of the people and countryside he visited.
“He road the rails to all 48 contiguous United States in search of a dream place to live and ended up in Sedona,” said Bradshaw’s son, Sedona City Councilman John Bradshaw.
In 1947, Bradshaw made his first purchase of real property in Sedona in the Chapel area, paying $40 for 4 acres of land.
“It was a paradise that captured our hearts,” he wrote.
Bradshaw found his niche when he started assisting movie companies that traveled to Sedona to shoot Westerns. He helped build sets, guided crews to locations and acted as a stunt double or stand in in several movies.
By the end of 1947, Bradshaw’s skill as a carpenter, and his ability to handle horses and cattle, made him a valuable asset in the making of movies in Sedona.
The set of an Old West town that Bradshaw built near Lloyd Butte was used for decades by movie makers and appears in many Westerns of the 1940s and 1950s. The movie set was torn down in 1960.
Bradshaw’s many nature photographs were published in books, magazines and calendars all across the country, especially Arizona Highways.
“I was always impressed when Bob Bradshaw would come into my bookstore,” said Kate Thorne, a Sedona historian and former owner of Sedona Books & Music.
“He was a man of very few words, but he had a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, and you knew there were all kinds of thoughts hopping around in his head. You were always dying to know what he was thinking about.”
Bradshaw is survived by two sons, Scott and John and several grandchildren.
A Celebration of Life is set for 2 p.m. Monday, Aug. 25, at Relics.
