Simsbury Firefighters Remember Fallen Founder/Circus Fire Victim

SIMSBURY, CT — The Simsbury Volunteer Fire Co. showed over the weekend that one of its founding members will never be forgotten.

On July 6, 1944, Frank Bradley — who along with 17 other Simsbury residents founded the SVFC —went to the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus under the big top in Hartford with his wife and two daughters.

It was to be a summer matinee, an afternoon's respite from a national psyche still occupied by World War II.

Bradley, 32, however, never came home. Neither did his wife.

Saturday was the 80th anniversary of the Great Hartford Circus Fire, which killed 168 people on that fateful day as the big top erupted into a fireball as a packed house fled for their lives.

Also killed was Bradley's wife, Helen Alicia Bradley, 30, but their two children did survive, according to the SVFD.

Reportedly, the family was separated and the girls' parents rushed back into the inferno, only to be killed.

The SVFC has a memorial page dedicated to Bradley and what happened that fateful day.

"In the ensuing panic, Frank Bradley and his wife became separated from their two daughters as the fire moved rapidly across the tent consuming it. Frank Bradley and his wife entered the inferno to search for their missing daughters. Both of their daughters would escape the flames that day but tragically, neither of their parents would re-emerge from the big top," wrote the SVFC.

"The ironies of the tragedy speak for themself. Fire Company physician Dr. Owen Murphy took-in Frank Bradley’s daughters and raised them in their parent’s absence. Frank Bradley tragically became the first member of the Simsbury Volunteer Fire Company to leave us behind."

Saturday, July 6, A memorial event took place at the Hartford Circus Fire Memorial on 350 Barbour St., behind Wish School in the city.

For more information on the late Frank Bradley in Simsbury, click on this link.