Award-winning reporter 'wrote with a spare elegance'

An award winning Chicago Sun-Times reporter, who covered Chicago for nearly 40 years while raising his family in the Fox Valley area, has died.

William K. "Bill" Braden died Wednesday at his Carpentersville home after a long illness. He was 77.

Colleagues at the Sun-Times are mourning the passing of the longtime reporter and feature writer, whose crisp writing style and wry wit inspired many of them.

"Bill wrote with a spare elegance, he never wasted a word," said columnist Tom McNamee. "He wrote from his head, but also from his heart. Bill always gave the benefit of the doubt to the people he wrote about, never taking a cheap shot.

"He was a kind man," McNamee added, "and that came through in his stories."

Braden honed his journalism skills at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where he was named "outstanding male graduate" in 1953. He remained at the university until 1956 as a public relations writer.

In 1956, Braden started as a reporter at the Sun-Times. He earned his first byline covering the Democratic National Convention, when former President John F. Kennedy drew national attention by nearly winning the vice presidential nomination on the ticket with Adlai E. Stevenson.

Later, in 1963, when he was dispatched to Washington to cover Kennedy's funeral, family members said, it was one of his hardest stories to write.

"That really hit him hard," said his daughter Anne Hogan of Wilmette.

One of Braden's favorite beats, family members said, was covering former Mayor Richard J. Daley, but he also covered the political scene during successive Chicago mayors and the death of Harold Washington.

Braden often researched long series, examining everything from infant mortality, to Chicago's South Side Chatham neighborhood, but mostly he enjoyed covering breaking news, his daughter said.

"My mother always wanted him to write a column," Hogan added, "but he loved being a general assignment reporter, because he could go from one topic to the next."

Braden won numerous awards during his long career and also wrote three books, including: "The Private Sea" in 1967, "The Age of Aquarius" in 1970, and "The Family Game" in 1972.

He was preceded in death by his first wife, humor writer and West Dundee native Beatrice Brittian Braden. Besides his daughter Anne, he is survived by his second wife, Aniela, another daughter Jennifer (Eric) Rockenhauser of Elgin, and four grandchildren.

Visitation will take place from 1 p.m. today until a 2 p.m. funeral service begins at Miller Funeral home, 504 W. Main St., West Dundee.