The Bramleys
A 1998 Visit from Jim’s Cousin,
Gertrude Bramley
Jim remembers his Hardy cousin Gertrude Bramley visiting the family in about 1998 in Concord with Howard Liljestrand who was visiting to make his final rounds in his beloved Boston and Woods Hole. Gertrude was a well known pediatrician who was head of Maternal and Child Welfare at the Federal Department of Health and Education who in her last 15 or so years of work lived and worked in maternal and child health at the regional office of HEW. She was about 83 and still working. She knew of Jim and his work in starting Braintree Hospital and at the Harvard School of Public Health (he was Assistant to the Dean—Howard Hiatt). Jim was unaware of Gertrude and her work. Jim recalls Gertrude bringing to the Concord House (396 Lexington Rd) a poster sized diagram of the relationships described in the charts below and in the Hardy details elsewhere). She described some male members of the Hardy family as ‘impetuous’. For example, in a family owned paper mill two generations of Hardys (Jim recalls it was Marvin) did work that was later described as extremely risky and without much planning. When Robert took the job at Waldorf Paper Mill in Minneapolis in 1944 his mother Ethel mentioned that he has entered the ‘family business’ of running paper mills. Gertrude had a very old family lake house on Lake Skaneateles she offered to Jim and Alice as she wanted to keep it in the family. Jim and Alice with two young daughters and a place in Woods Hole did not see how they could provide the energy and love necessary to keep up such a wonderful house.
Below is a chart of the second cousin relationship between Gertrude and my father Robert Liljestrand. Jim’s gr-grandfather Chauncey Hardy and Gertrude’s gr-grandfather Amelia Hardy were siblings. Amelia was the twin sister of Adelia Hardy (1852-1930), who married Charles Tator.
Gertude Bramley’s Obituary
Dr. Gertrude Leland Bramley, 88, of North Main St., Jordan, and Framingham, MA, died November 1, 2004, in the Presbyterian Home of Central New York, New Hartford, NY. Dr. Bramley was born May 21, 1916, in Syracuse, NY, the daughter of Charles Marvin Bramley and Jessica Edgarita Leland. She grew up in Jordan, NY, where her father was a local attorney and her mother was a librarian. Following graduation from Jordan High School in 1934, she received a BS degree in nutrition from Cornell University in 1938. She received her MD degree from Syracuse University School of Medicine in 1949 and completed a residency in pediatrics at Syracuse Medical Center.
After a brief interval in private practice in Geneva, NY, she pursued a lifelong interest in the treatment of handicapped children in several medical centers in New England and Washington, DC. She obtained a Master's of Public Health degree at Johns Hopkins University in 1960. She ultimately became the New England Regional Medical Director for Maternal and Child Health Services of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, a position she held from 1966 until her retirement in 1993. She was the author of a number of scholarly articles in medical books and journals.
She was an accomplished violinist and loved to travel. She was devoted to her family, and in later years developed a keen interest in genealogy. She divided her time between her residence in Framingham, MA, and the family home in Jordan. She was predeceased by her brother, William Bramley, and her sister, Margaret Bramley Johnson. She is survived by her sister-in-law, Mildred Leonard Bramley; seven nieces and nephews, Judith Johnson Boros, Dover, NH; William Johnson, Sioux City, IA; Robert Johnson, Alexandria Bay, NY; Elizabeth Bramley Carell, Superior, CO; Charles Bramley, Canastota, NY; James Bramley, Clinton, NY; and Margaret Bramley Costello, Colchester, VT; many grandnieces, grandnephews and cousins, and her beloved cat, Henrietta.
Services will be 1:30 p.m. Sunday, November 14, at Bush Funeral Home, 15 N. Main St., Jordan. Interment will be in Maple Grove Cemetery. Friends may call at the funeral home from noon to 1:30 p.m. Sunday, prior to the funeral. Following the burial, friends are invited to a reception at the Jordan Bramley Library.
In lieu of flowers, please consider memorial gifts to the Jordan Bramley Library, PO Box 923, Jordan, NY 13080
BUSH FUNERAL HOME
Jordan 689-6116
NewspaperArchive.com, Syracuse Post Standard, Syracuse, NY,
Sunday, 7 Nov 2004,page B-6 : downloaded 13 Oct 2025.
Jessica Leland Bramley
Gertrude Bramley’s mother, Jessica Edgarita Leland Bramley, husband of Charles Bramley, was a librarian from a prominent family. This web page from the Jordan Historical Society (click the image for a direct link) gives a fascinating account of her recollections of life in Jordan in the early 1900s.
