Welcome to the Braden Family Website

In 1993, my wife at the time, Bonnie Braden, and I hosted a surprise 50th Wedding Anniversary Celebration for my parents, Bill and Elaine Braden.

Before the festivities began, I quietly took my father aside with a video camera and asked him to tell me more about his service in World War II.

Bill Braden had been drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943 and attended Officer Candidate School - a demanding program where many candidates never earned their commissions. He did. He was assigned to the Army's Ordnance Branch, responsible for supplying the ammunition that kept the Allied Army advancing.

During the war he managed ammunition depots in France and Luxembourg. He once told me that, for a time, Russian soldiers worked under his supervision. They had been liberated by advancing American forces but were unable to return home immediately because that would have required travel through Germany - and the German Army. They were simply grateful to be alive and to have meaningful work and three meals a day while waiting for the war to end.

With the camera recording, I asked Dad to share some of his other memories of the war.

He looked at me for a long moment, then quietly said, "I can't remember."
      . . . . . . and I the realized he was in the early stages of dementia.

That moment changed my life.

I realized that memories disappear unless someone preserves them. I decided then and there to begin recording my own experiences - not because I thought they were extraordinary, but because one day my children, grandchildren, or children of future generations might want to know where they came from and the experiences that helped shape our family.

Over the next several decades I documented nearly 30 years of military service in the United States and overseas, with my family accompanying me through much of that journey. Along the way I expanded my collection to include family activities and stories, some genealogical information, post-Army employment, and some favorite jokes.

From those efforts, the BradenClan Website was born.

Today it contains more than twenty-six years of monthly calendars, each linking to photographs, stories, and memories of our family's adventures. There are pages about military assignments, cruises, vacations, family games, around 30 years of Christmas Letters, holidays, graduations and other family achievements, family gatherings, and many of the ordinary moments that, over time, become life's greatest treasures.

What began as my father's inability to remember his own wartime experiences became a lifelong project dedicated to preserving memories before they are lost.

What first felt like a disappointment became an unexpected gift - and, I hope, a meaningful legacy.

My father's silence in front of that video camera wasn't the end of his story.
It became the beginning of mine.

Perhaps someday one of my great-grandchildren - or even a great-great-grandchild - will sit down at a computer and browse this website. They might click on a month from years before they were born and discover a photograph of Bonnie and me at Universal Orlando, or Joyce and me enjoying a cruise to Mexico. They may read about my Army career, smile at one of the many jokes I've collected, or simply enjoy seeing the faces of relatives they never had the opportunity to meet.

They won't just learn names and dates.
They'll come to know the people behind them.

My hope is that this website becomes more than a family archive. I hope it becomes a map - not simply of where our family has been, but of who we were, what we valued, and the lives we shared together.

And I have a feeling that if Bill Braden could sit down today and browse the BradenClan Website, he would probably smile - not because every memory was preserved, but because one forgotten conversation inspired his son to preserve so many others.

If you're family, welcome home.

Enjoy the journey!