Harold Warren Bragdon

Harold W. Bragdon, 82, of Topeka, KS passed away Tuesday, October 27, 2026.

He was born January 14, 1944 in Santa Monica, California to Ralph and Ethel (Sweezey) Bragdon. The family returned to Topeka when he was a young child. He graduated from Highland Park High School in 1962 and attended the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology majoring in physics.

He married Viriginia Berry in1969, they were divorced in 1986. Carol (Stone)and Harold were married in 1989. She survives at the home.

Other survivors include sister Marilyn (Dwight) Brown; son Brian; stepdaughters Jennifer Whitten; Elizabeth (Nathan) Govea; Grandchildren Quentin Peltzer, Andrew Govea, Austin Govea, Dylan Govea, Drake Govea and Harper Whitten.

He was preceded in death by his parents; brother Ron Bragdon; daughter Lisa Bragdon; stepdaughter Sarah Whitten.

Harold worked at St. Francis Hospital for 43 years, retiring in 2015. He managed the biomedical engineering and later the information systems departments. Accomplishments included inventing and obtaining a patent for a device now used widely in heart surgeries, building the marketing robot U.B.O.K. robot used by several hospitals in the 1980’s and mentoring many coworkers in the electronics and informatics fields. He was a pioneer in the development and implementation of the electronic medical record for hospitals, both at St. Francis and as a consultant with a national company.

He was inquisitive from a young age. His mother reported he took everything apart in the house to see how it worked, but always put it back together, sometime with improvements! While a student he won numerous science fairs, participating at a national level. He was a National Merit Finalist. He loved challenges, building and racing motorcycles as a young man and drag racing the Nissan Maxima he highly modified in later years. He loved the logic of computers, building and upgrading machines and teaching himself high levels of programming languages.

Harold was an avid reader, and was never without a book. He loved history, particularly WWII relating to where his father served in Europe. He read widely from the Classics to sci-fi, modern graphic novels and poetry. He often shared the wisdom of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, giving lessons in life and strategy to coworkers and grandsons.

More importantly, he was a devoted husband and family man. He will always be remembered as the one who wanted most in life to help others succeed. That support came in many ways from some extra cash slipped to the girls, to fixing cars, supplying and maintaining computers, bringing coffee to his wife every morning before work and helping to keep the household running while she pursued a career and graduate school. Spoiling the grandkids was a given! When challenges presented his philosophy was not to judge or give advice, but to help find ways to learn from the situation and then provide the support to make the individual be ultimately successful. Harold will always be remembered for his devotion to family and friends, generosity to a fault, stubbornness and at times quirky personality. He was without a doubt an individual that made a difference in many lives.

Cremation is planned with family burial and celebration of life to be held at a later date.