Faces Of Nantucket: Anne Bradt

As she approaches her 100th birthday this weekend, island resident Anne Bradt said her only advice to the generations coming up behind her is short and sweet:

“Two things: be kind and learn to laugh,” said Bradt, sitting in her residence at Sherburne Commons.

Bradt first started coming to Nantucket in 1948 and moved to the island permanently in 1976. She and her husband bought and operated the Nantucket Bake Shop for decades with her daughter Magee and son-in-law Jay Detmer. Anne also founded the Small Friends early childhood education center, the first of its kind on Nantucket, with Bernie and Grace Grossman, a legacy that continues to thrive on the island. 

Today, Bradt remains active playing bridge and Scrabble with her friends, cuddling with her cat, Faye, and staying in touch with her four children, 10 grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren via FaceTime. Perhaps her favorite hobby, though, is rug-hooking.

“I have a unique, distinct title,” she says. “I'm the only 100-year-old hooker that you know.”

Bradt’s legacy as the founder of Small Friends is one that she still holds dear. She remains involved with the early childhood education center by offering her support, such as recently asking that anyone planning to give her a birthday gift instead make a donation toward a new playground. She fondly recalls the origin of Small Friends in 1988.

“The town circulated (a survey) among the nursing staff and the teaching staff, and I think the grocery store - the larger number of employees - to find out what the needs in the community were,” she recalled. “And of course, it came back as No. 1 was housing, and No. 2 was childcare. There were no provisos at all for young children. They were being taken care of by people in private homes by well-meaning, all-aged people, sometimes in the basements, sometimes in the kitchen. And it was then that they decided that they would address the daycare problem. And Bernie Grossman turned around and said to my husband, who was sitting there, ‘What's a daycare?’ My husband said, "Ask my wife.' And that's when I was cut off from the Bake Shop and spent about three or four months starting Small Friends.”

The project was right in Anne's wheelhouse. Before coming to Nantucket, she had served as the executive director of a daycare center at Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York, as well as in various teaching roles from preschool up to college.

The first iteration of Small Friends began shortly thereafter in the basement of the First Congregational Church on Centre Street.

“By the end of the summer, we were snowed under in applications,” Bradt said.

The things that first attracted Bradt to Nantucket when she visited in the 1940s remain all these years later. Perhaps, she said, that’s why she’s still here.

“It’s the natural beauty of the island,” she said. “That has never changed. It was a place to relax. There were no red lights. There weren’t any fast food restaurants. There wasn't anything that off-island had. I guess that's why I'm here.”

With her 100th birthday this Saturday, all of Bradt’s children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will be on the island to celebrate her centennial with a pizza party.

“I have four children, I have 10 grandchildren, I have 11 great-grandchildren, who range in age from nine months to 25 years,” she said with a smile. “And I understand my 25-year-old great-granddaughter has a boyfriend. So what's going to happen? I'm going to get another. A great-great-grandchild!”