Flowing with the music

CROTHERSVILLE - Whether Dolly Mae Bradshaw is strumming an upright bass or working in an infrared technology lab, the Crothersville native can flow with the best of them.

Music has been in Bradshaw's family for years, and she worked her way into a career in infrared.

On May 31, Bradshaw displayed her skills at the upright bass, also known to those in the bluegrass world as a doghouse or center bass, with seven other bluegrass musicians, including her cousins, Kyle, Brandon, and Aaron Clerkin, Jake Brown, Donnie Collings and Steve and Clayton Howser.

Performing together for the second time, the group provided music during the Crothersville Sesquicentennial Committee's fundraising dinner at the Crothersville-Vernon Township Volunteer Fire Department on May 31.

That night, they also came up with a band name, Descendants. The group members trace back to the Trowbridge family.

They regrouped June 7 at the monthly bluegrass show at Jefferson County Fairgrounds near Madison, where they initially met in May.

"She plays all the stuff we listen to," Brown said of why the group added Bradshaw to the mix. Brown said Bradshaw was different from most bass players.

"It's the enthusiasm," he said. "She doesn't back down."

Bradshaw picked up bass in a workshop in California, where she was working at the time.

"They told me I couldn't play like a girl because you can't play (music) with the boys," she said. "You've got to hit it. You can't be afraid."

So how did she go from playing bluegrass and country music to working with infrared?

In 1969, Bradshaw went to Texas to visit her father. While she was there, she got a job at Texas Instruments in Dallas.

"I was always kind of interested in science," she said of her days at Crothersville schools. "(Texas Instruments) is in the semiconductor industry, and I started out working in a laboratory on calculator chips."

Bradshaw, who didn't graduate from high school but obtained her GED, then went to a small spin-off company in Dallas, before making her biggest career move of helping start up FLIR Systems in Oregon.

Bradshaw eventually made it back to Texas before working at Litton Electronics Devices in Arizona and Rockwell International in California.

Even though she was going to school at night at each job location, she never obtained a college degree.

"Every place I worked, I was either going to school at night or taking classes at work that were work-sponsored," she said. "That's where you really learn infrared, in the labs with people."

At 55, Bradshaw considered early retirement. She returned to Crothersville to help her sister, Rita Ibershoff, take care of their mother, Doris Lewis. But, a company in Ohio found out about Bradshaw's work in infrared.

Since then, she's worked for L-3 Communications in Mason, Ohio, near Cincinnati. She oversees 12 technicians in the lab.

Many of the products made by the companies Bradshaw has worked for are used by the Department of Defense, and some have been used by the International Space Station and its Hubble.

Throughout her years in the infrared sector, Bradshaw had a personal reason for sticking with it.

"I needed to make a living for my kids," she said. "I just worked my way up in every place. I was just fortunate to meet many of the founders that started infrared technology. It's such a small family of people. Once you learn how to do that, people will know who you are."

Wherever Bradshaw was working, her mother visited her whenever she could. Doris has since passed away.

"My mom always was really proud of me that I was able to make a good living, take care of my kids and learn a lot," Bradshaw said.

Of leaving Crothersville for the career she has had, Bradshaw said, "I did not have a clue what my life would entail. I didn't think I would ever, ever end up with a career in this field. I'm very blessed. I've been really fortunate."

All that time, she was playing music whenever she could, whether it was bass, piano, guitar or mandolin. She even picked up ballroom dancing, and was a national-champion roller skater in Texas.

But, Bradshaw said, she will always link her roots to bluegrass, and it's important to her, and to Brown, that that style of music carries on. He has played for years with Collings in the group, Jake Brown and Blueline.

"It's so comfortable for everybody, whether you're a listener or a musician," Brown said, as he appreciates the bluegrass musicians who are willing to meet their fans after shows. "That's one of the unique things about bluegrass and I hope it never goes away."

Bradshaw said, "It's down home, it's what I grew up with. If it didn't change, it would die. But it moves on and it's not going to lose its roots."

And she's not leaving music anytime soon.

"I don't see me quittin'," she said. "You don't put it away. You don't quit."