Bennett Bradbury was born in Wrentham, Massachusetts on February 23, 1914. He was the offspring of one of the more musical families of America at that time. His mother Elfrida Schroeder, was a grand opera star of the Boston Opera Company, and his maternal grandfather was Alwin Schroeder, acclaimed as a cellist.

Being raised and educated with such prestigious surroundings - Rachmaninoff, Kriesler, Paderewski, Horowitz and other famous personalities, Bradbury found many avenues within which to express his own natural and somewhat precocious talents. At age 15, he won a scholarship in painting and drawing with the Bostom Museum of Fine Arts, but with his inherent and overpowering love of the sea. he dropped his formal ...