David Royal Brager

David Royal Brager was born to George Olaus Brager and Mary Winteringer Brager on January 3, 1926, in Shepherd, Montana, at their homestead. His early years were spent learning and playing with his dog, Dandy, and riding Dandy to his Dad’s butcher shop in town, where Dad would give him 2 wieners, one for himself and one for Dandy, for the walk home.

At age 5, his parents divorced. He stayed with his Dad, though his mother did make an attempt to steal him back, but never left town. He was returned to his father, and his mother eventually moved away from the area. At some point, Dad and young David moved to North Dakota, where there were relatives to help care for the boy. Roy became the class clown in a one room schoolhouse. David claimed that his first-grade teacher, Miss Rosella Shinabarger, was the favorite of all the students. She apparently went on a date during the Christmas break that year, but the young man’s car broke down in the blizzard that had begun, so he went walking for help, but Rosella stayed in the car, as she had neither boots nor warm clothing along. The students weren’t told anything about it at all, but there was a new teacher when school resumed after the holiday. His Dad was Mayor at the time, and had been called to help, so he told David later that Miss Rosella had frozen to death in those northern plains in that blizzard. He also told us often about walking a mile to school in -40 below zero temperatures, only to find it closed, as the janitor was unable to keep it heated in that severe cold with only one woodburning stove, and so, he had to walk the mile home, in his felt boots.

Young David was shunted between his Dad’s tiny home, and his Uncle Albert’s home, which already had 10 children, and the home and farm of family friends, Nora and Joe Swanson, her mother and brother, who were a good influence on the middle school age child. Nora’s husband died young, so Nora decided to make a trip to Los Angeles, California, in 1943, where she had a brother living, to see if they could make a living there during World War II. Some of them stayed, and some went back to North Dakota to deal with selling the farm. David got a job at Douglas Aircraft in Hawthorne, where a young woman, Anna Chaput, taught him how to use a punch press to make airplane part in the assembly line. He was always a curious sort, so he made it his business to walk to the end of the assembly line to see what was coming out the other end, which is how he found out that they were building 24 planes in 24 hours! They were in production 24/7, due to the war. Every hour, a plane came off of that line, and he learned that a WAC was waiting for each plane, got into it, and flew it to wherever it was needed for the war effort.

In 1945, David managed to amputate parts of several fingers while on the job. He was supposed to go into the Army, but the fingers weren’t healed enough for him to be released to go. He finally was cleared, but the very next day, the War ended! He began seriously dating Miss Anna Chaput, and they were married at Fort Bliss, Texas, in the Army Chapel on base, by Padre Brennan, on December 20, 1950. He ended up stationed on Staten Island, New York, and Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, for most of his Korean War service. He was billeted at Miller Field, where his job was to radio contact the different batteries of troops surrounding and protecting New York City. That was at 8AM every morning, and the rest of the day, he was free. He took the Staten Island ferry to New York to get radio parts for the officers’ radios, and at one point, built a raft out of several empty oil barrels and some wood. He and other troops would swim out to it, tethered to the ocean floor, and jump off into the cool water, then swim back to shore. Hence, all of his skin cancer in later years! Meanwhile, his wife, Anna, had bought a small house in Inglewood. By the time he was honorably discharged, she had sold that one, and had bought another house, slightly larger, across the street and closer to Prairie Avenue and the Hollywood Park Race Track.

As David had been very interested in radio as a career before he was honorably discharged from the Army, now that he was finished with that, he used his GI Bill to go to National Schools to learn all he could about running and maintaining a radio station and repairing radios and televisions, the next big thing. He excelled at this, and was so skilled at teaching struggling classmates, that he was asked to join the faculty in teaching for a time. One of Nora’s brothers had been working at an LA radio station for a good while, and David was able to obtain a job at the same station, KPOP, through its various iterations as KPOP, KGBS, and KRTH. At KGBS, he built one of the first computer consoles in existence that allowed the announcer to play sounders and advertisements from the studio. He could fix anything, from equipment to leaky sunroofs, to ladies’ broken high heels, and he did all this while working there. Their daughters, Mary Ann, born in 1953, and Cynthia, born in 1956, joined the family, and we all moved into the 4843 house, that Mom designed, in Lennox/Inglewood in 1957. Someone decided that what they needed at the transmitter in Lynwood for mowing the sizeable lot was sheep. So, a herd appeared, to the delight of the little girls, who saw them as pets, not mowing machines. He took care of the sheep, as he had worked with them on the farm. After many years, the upcoming Century Freeway bought the lot, moved the house somewhere, and they moved, as empty nesters, to another house designed by Anna, in 1985.

Dad was forced to retire from his job as Chief Engineer in 1991. That gave him lots of free time, and with a smaller yard and property, he had the time to spread his wings a bit. He was always involved with his HAM radio, and then became involved in the Hawthorne Emergency Preparedness Organization, through the Hawthorne Police Department down the street. He participated in a number of HAM nets, and helped out with pretty much everything happening at St. Joseph’s Church, from helping Mom decorate one of the altars for Christmas to repairing the priests’ televisions and radios, and getting them set up for internet. He helped with the Carnival and the Food Drive, even losing Mom one time when she, in the hell of Alzheimer’s Disease, wandered off and actually made it across Hawthorne Blvd, alone, on a Sunday morning. She wasn’t found till late that night, in East Los Angeles, at a hospital.

Dad was raised by older people, and made it his calling to look after them. ALL of them. It seemed to us that when one buddy passed away, a couple of new buddies magically appeared, all needing just a bit of help. He helped out Ric’s Mom when she needed someone to go walking with her, so she wouldn’t fall. He helped out the neighbors near and far in Hawthorne, with whatever they needed. He ushered at St. Joseph’s for many, many decades. He got involved with the Hawthorne Historical Museum, until he broke his hip twice the same year, and had to sell the house and move to Colorado Springs and Morris Plains, New Jersey, 6 or so months at a time. Through it all, he was cheerful, outgoing, uplifting and made friends very easily. Again, for each friend who moved away, passed away or otherwise left the area, he seemed to find a few more who needed a good friend. He graciously welcomed Ric and Joe as sons-in-law, and delighted in meeting each great grandchild, both in Colorado and in New Jersey. We shuttled him back and forth between the two parts of the country, so he was able to get to know everyone, and play on the floor with the little ones, and ask for 47 cups of coffee from the play kitchen, which kept the little ones dedicated to keeping Great PopPop’s cup filled with coffee. He always had a joke, or a smart remark to offer, on almost any subject. He liked everyone he ever met, and they, and we, loved him to pieces. Every single person we told of his passing was sad to learn about it. We wish we could have had him forever, but he went as he wished. Every single minute was a gift, and we hope that we didn’t waste any of them.

David passed into God’s loving care, in Hospice, on May 3, 2025, as he wished, with family surrounding him. We are all so blessed to have known and loved him.