Mansch On Montana: Hockey, humility mark Ray Brady's 100 years

Ray B. Brady was born in Saskatchewan, Canada, in 1918, to parents who were United States citizens.

Ray’s father ran a billiard parlor, then lost it during the Depression. Ray later told his children he could recall when his own dad put the family's only mode of transportation, an old pickup, on blocks. Because they didn’t have money to pay for gas.

Ray had an uncle in Havre, who sponsored him as a teen. And that’s when Ray, a sparkling young athlete, moved to the Hi-Line. He worked as a delivery boy for Buttrey Foods in Havre.

He became a U.S. citizen with an affection for hard work — and for hockey. He was such a skilled skater that soon he acquired a nickname: Ray “Flash” Brady.

“The way he got to Great Falls,” says Ray’s son Branch, “was the local Great Falls team came to play Havre, which was just a thrown-together team. So the Havre team beat Great Falls 7-to-nothing. And Dad scored all seven goals.”

Branch laughs.

“Anyway, they figured he ought to come to Great Falls and play,” Branch says. “So they found him a job in Great Falls. From then on, he was a pretty important part of the team.”

And of the town.

It was about 80 years ago.

ASK LONGTIME Great Falls sports fans about Ray Brady and you’ll get a smile — and a story or two.

Ike Kaufman, an octogenarian whose family-owned clothing business has thrived in downtown Great Falls since 1885, was also once a fine young athlete himself. He loved hockey.

“In the sequence of (hockey in Great Falls),” says Ike, “it was Ray Brady, Sammy Williamson and Terry Casey. There were a lot of good ones, but those are the ones that stand out.”

Casey, of course, is the legendary Great Falls athlete who starred on the ice at North Dakota and made the U.S. Olympic hockey team before his life was snuffed out by an auto accident.

Ray Brady was just as dominant in his day.

“I was learning to skate when I was watching Ray Brady play hockey,” Ike says. “He was the one who taught the local hockey community to not watch the puck. To keep your head up in order to deke the other players.”

Ike, as dapper as ever while working at the store one morning last week, smiles.

“Ray Brady,” he says softly, “was a great hockey player. And a real nice guy.”

RAY B. BRADY TURNED 100 on Oct. 30. His family threw a huge party in Great Falls.

“It was wonderful,” daughter DeeAnna says.

“It was all about family, not hockey,” son Branch says.

But his hockey legacy in our town lives on.

“Oh my gosh,” DeeAnna says. “I still talk to people who tell me that Dad was a hero of their father’s. Even three generations later, people still talk about him.”

“He is the most unassuming man,” Branch says. “He’s a please-and-thank-you kind of guy.”

DURING WORLD WAR II, Ray was in the Army and, Branch says, was headed to the Pacific in the final year of the conflict.

“Some of the details are sketchy,” Branch says, “because he was typical of World War II veterans. They just did not talk about it. I think he was part of the invasion force and was in the harbor when Japan surrendered. So he was part of the occupation forces.”

After the war Ray came back to Great Falls and started playing hockey again. Eventually he became the player-coach of the Great Falls squad. Ray worked at the smelter, then for City Motors.

In 1952, Ray took a job in Shelby and moved his family back up to the Hi-Line. But not before the Great Falls hockey community had a “Ray Brady Night” to celebrate his puck prowess.

In the summer of 1964, when Branch was star runner in high school, the family moved back to Great Falls. Eventually, Ray worked as a custodian for the Montana School for the Deaf and Blind.

Now he lives in the memory care unit at Benefis.

“He’s a Great Falls guy, he really is,” Branch says.

DEEANNA BRADY-LEADER is Branch’s older sister. She and Branch and brother Ken grew up in a Brady household that was never boring.

“Dad was such an active person,” DeeAnna says. “My first memories are over there at Gibson Pond and doing family picnics at Giant Springs. He was such an amazing father. From the time we could move, he was taking us everywhere. We went camping before we were old enough to walk, every single one of us.

“When we were older our activities were everything from bird hunting, fishing, water skiing, deer and elk hunting … everything.”

DeeAnna was in college when she began to snow ski. So Ray decided to give it a try.

“He just took to it right away and was slaloming no problem,” DeeAnna says. “By the time I was in my 40s, he could run circles around me on a ski hill.

“He was an amazingly gifted athlete.”

RAY’S WIFE was Dolores. Everybody called her Dee.

“My mother started teaching dance when she was 16 and quit until she was 82,” Branch says.

She ran Dee’s School of Dance on Central Avenue in Great Falls for many decades, teaching young and old everything from tap to ballroom dancing.

“She was not a housewife,” DeeAnna smiled. “Us kids at home all had our jobs.”

“We weren’t very good at it,” Branch smiles back.

Dee, who died in 2005, was a beloved figure to our own kids – and hundreds of Great Falls youths who learned to dance in her studio.

“We had her influence, which was working with kids,” Branch says. “And that was passed on.”

BRANCH BECAME a highly successful teacher and cross country-track coach in Great Falls. He continues to coach at C.M. Russell High.

DeeAnna was also an educator. She served as the Director of Indian Education for the Great Falls School District and was one of founders of the International Traditional Games Society, for which she still volunteers full-time.

Younger brother Ken, who also was once an educator, is in the construction business in Cascade.

“Dad was always there,” Branch says. “And he was always encouraging.”

RAY BRADY was a man of action, not words.

“He didn’t talk about himself at all,” Branch says.

“Really he didn’t say very much,” DeeAnna says. “Our life was full of action. He would give short instructions: get that boat unpacked, or ‘you need to move faster.’ That was a big one.”

DeeAnna laughs.

“I remember trying to keep up with him,” she says. “Every one of the three of us, we had to run when he was walking, just to keep up. We had to really move to keep up with him.”

Ray roller-bladed until he was 84, on the small section of River’s Edge Trail that was completed and through the neighborhoods of Great Falls.

“He was always happiest,” DeeAnna says, “when he was being active.”

RAY WAS A STAR, but he didn’t seek the limelight.

“He was quiet,” Ike says.

Once Ray and Branch were out at a Great Falls restaurant and Ike approached them.

“I said, ‘Oh, the famous Ray Brady,’ ” Ike says with a smile. “And he didn’t say word one.’ But trust me, he was something."

Branch is proud of his father’s athletic prowess – and his unforgettably humble personality.

“He’s always been known as a nice guy,” says Branch. “Just the nicest, nicest guy. And that belies his hockey persona. Because he was an aggressive hockey player and superb skater.”

To be sure, Ray’s reputation on the ice clashed with his personality off it. A highly competitive hockey play who was unafraid of mixing it up in the corners and more than once shed blood after particularly rugged games, Ray was a gentleman when not on skates.

“He never complained, no matter what,” Branch says.

Says Ike: “Everybody loved him. He was hero to a lot of us.”

RAY HAS LOST some of his short-term memory. And his hearing has faded. But, says Branch and DeeAnna, his handshake is strong and his smile steady.

“He’s happy where he is,” Branch says. “And they’re taking superb care of him.”

At the end of his 100th birthday party, which was attended by his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Ray stood up.

Perhaps he is no longer as quick as a flash, but his short speech was poignant and to the point.

“He said, ‘Well, thanks for coming, but I don’t really deserve it,’ ” Branch says.

Such an attitude is a blessing. And Ray’s kids know it.

“You know,” says DeeAnna. “I was applying to work for a psychiatrist at the University of Montana years ago. I was 19 years old and this person had asked me all kinds of questions about my childhood. I had talked about kids and the things we did growing up. And at the end of the interview, she looked at me and said, ‘Do you even understand how lucky you were?’ “

DeeAnna smiles softly.

“I thought, why? Because I thought every family was that way,” she says. And then she pauses.

“The world,” she says, “can be quite different from what we experienced. Dad was wonderful.”

Mansch On Montana appears frequently in the Great Falls Tribune. Scott Mansch can be reached at 791-1481 or smansch@greatfallstribune.com