#detroithistory

When the Fox sisters of Hydesville, New York claimed they contacted the spirit of a murdered peddler in 1848 the ears of the entire country listened. Suddenly there was hope that those who passed away were not truly gone and people from all over began to scramble to find ways to communicate with the dead. Later, with the horrors of the Civil War tearing the country and families apart people looked to Spiritualism and any way possible to find answers from beyond. Hundreds of thousands never came home, countless numbers were never found and the need for closure and communication drove people into the parlors and palms of people claiming they could be their much-needed bridge to the other side.  As many people that believed in life after death, there were just as many who refuted it and the divide grew. As time moved on the division deepened with both sides seeking the ultimate proof that death was, or was not, the end. It is an argument that is still actively debated to this day.

Prof. Thomas Lynn Bradford was a man of many ventures. A one-time electrical engineer, athlete, and actor, by 1920 he had begun studying and lecturing about the occult with a particular focus on the afterlife. The world had now suffered through World War I and people’s spirituality was again feeling highly tested. Bradford was a man of sound mind, but his headspace became more and more filled with his thoughts on life after death and how to prove it. He wrote “…all phenomena are outside the domain of the supernatural." He wanted to prove his theories using scientific fact, but he knew he could not do it alone.

Professor Thomas Lynn Bradford.

In the early part of 1921 Bradford placed an ad in a local Detroit newspaper under the name “Professor Flynn” and stated that he was seeking “someone interested in spiritualistic science.” It was a strange ad, which was exactly why it caught the attention of prominent Detroit native Ruth Starkweather Doran. Doran was not a firm believer in Spiritualism. But, she was an avid researcher and was intrigued with the opportunity to learn about a field so unfamiliar to her. On a whim, she responded to the ad and before long she and Bradford began meeting face to face.

The experiment Bradford presented to Doran would have sent most people running, but for reasons unknown, she stuck with the plan. Before their last meeting on February 5th 1921 Bradford finished typing his latest manuscript and laid it neatly next to his typewriter. There was much to do and once Doran arrived the details were ironed out about how he would contact her when his half of the experiment was complete and how they would then reunite. The deal was made. They bid each other farewell and Bradford shut the door of his rented room. He knew he would not be disturbed, he already informed his landlord, a Mr. Marcotte, that if anyone were to call for him to tell them he was out and would not be back until very late. He turned on his heater. blew out the pilot light, turned up the gas, and laid down in bed until the fumes took his life.

The fact that Bradford killed himself in pursuit of answers about life after death may not have come as a shock to some of his friends. It was later reported that the occult interested him more than anything in the physical world. At one point he told Mr. Marcotte, “When I die my body goes to science. It is to be sent to the Michigan Medical Institute. Anyhow, my body does not amount to much.”

When Bradford’s body was discovered by Marcotte the next day the gas was still pouring from his heater. Upon investigation police found his typewriter, with one final note never removed, “And it is through scientific facts that I propose to demonstrate clearly the phenomena of spirits and prove that all the phenomena is outside the domain of super-natural.” Baffled by the suicide, the Detroit Police Department began to look for an explanation, and the dots quickly led to Doran who escaped any legal action by claiming they had met and discussed proving the afterlife but that she did not know he was planning to kill himself that night. Now, with his lifeless body laying in his home the first part of Bradford’s plan was complete. The second part relied on reconnecting with Doran to prove there was life after death. The self-proclaimed skeptic agreed to go through with it. “I am his friend.” Doran said, “If he can cause his spirit to come back to earth I believe his spirit will come to me first.”

Newspaper headline about Bradford’s suicide.

In the days following Bradford’s suicide the eyes of the Spiritualism world were firmly fixed on Doran’s parlor where she was hosting multiple vigils waiting for her friend to reach out and make contact. Throughout the entire process though, Doran made it a point that she was not a psychic, saying that she was simply a human being there to serve as a middleman and prove Bradford’s theories. She and the intrigued masses patiently waited night after night for a connection, but the hours moved on quietly with Doran only stating at one point that she felt a “strange sensation”.

Doran and the spiritualists were not the only one wanting to hear from Bradford. Multiple newspapers waited eagerly for word, running headlines updating the masses with the New York Times reporting, “Dead Spiritualist Silent” two days after the suicide. It was a few days into a planned two week long vigil that there was finally something to report, but it was not from Doran. A woman named Lulu Mack came forward stating that during a visit with a medium she heard a voice calling the name “Thomas Bradford”, a name she claimed was totally unfamiliar to her at the time. She told reporters that Bradford could not communicate very well because his suicide made him weak, suspending him before he could fully pass on to the next realm. “Life has fled from the body of Thomas Lynn Bradford but his spirit is hovering near and calling to us to hear its message,” Mack reported. “I have heard the call of his spirit. It is calling to me even now. But I cannot hear the message it would send, because the spirit is too weak.”

Headline from The New York Times, February 18, 1921. 

Headline from  The Pittsburgh Press, February 10, 1921.

Suddenly, a week after Bradford took his own life, Doran claimed she had a feeling she was going to hear from him, but it would be difficult considering how weak he was. Papers, thirsty for the next part of their bizarre story, urged spiritualists to concentrate on Bradford and “assist” him in reaching out. To make sure it was a focused effort it was agreed that 9pm was the time to take action and focus to help Bradford and Doran reconnect.

Much to the delight of some and criticism of others, at 9pm that night Doran sat in her darkened parlor with three witnesses. Suddenly, she put her hands to her temples, commanded the lights be turned off, and told someone to start writing. According to her, Bradford had finally arrived. “I hear his voice” she said to the room, “It is faint, but it grows more distinct. It is the professor.”

As Doran spoke in broken fragments the alleged message from Bradford was slowly pieced together:

“I am the professor who speaks to you from the Beyond. I have broken through the veil. The help of the living has greatly assisted me. I simply went to sleep. I woke up and at first did not realize that I had passed on. I find no great change apparent. I expected things to be much different. They are not. Human forms are retained in outline but not in the physical. I have not traveled far. I am still much in the darkness. I see many people. They appear natural. There is a lightness of responsibility here unlike in life. One feels full of rapture and happiness. Persons of like natures associate. I am associated with other investigators. I do not repent my act. My present plane is but the first series. I am still investigating the future planes regarding which we in this plane are as ignorant as are earthly beings of the life just beyond human life.”

At 10pm the lights were brought back on and a flustered Doran looked over the bits and pieces that she claimed were given to her directly from the spirit of Bradford. Then, she suddenly fainted. Once resuscitated one of the witnesses asked her if she was positive about her message, was she absolutely sure she was speaking with Bradford from beyond the grave? She was adamant, “I am convinced. I never heard a spirit voice before. That was the professor, without doubt."

Illustration from  The Ogden Standard-Examiner, February 21, 1921.

For all of the speculation and attention leading up to Doran waiting to hear from Bradford, the aftermath was remarkably tame. Despite the accounts from both Doran and Mack, members of both the Spiritualism community and the general public were not convinced that the alleged message from Bradford was proof of anything. The headlines faded into obscurity and Doran went along with them. Later in the year Doran wrote an article claiming that she maintained regular communication with her departed friend ever since. She was now a believer, still receiving messages from Bradford detailing how one day both realms would meet.

“Through spiritualism the world will be reclaimed: sin will be vanquished, suffering will end” she claimed he told her. “The physical in man will cease to be, and physical death, and that is the only death, will be no more. Men will live on earth forever, even as they live forever in the spirit world.”

At the time of his death Bradford was near penniless. His estranged wife living in Wisconsin only learned of his death later and his body was claimed by a brother, James Bradford, who handed it over to an undertaker for interment.

Packard Plant Bridge over Grand Blvd in Detroit - 1939 

The Everly Brothers, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, the Four Tops and the Roostertail restaurant in Detroit 

Source: Bentley Historical Library