Schools

Staff and Administration

Henry Alonzo "H. A." Redfield, Bratenahl's First School Superintendent

H. A. Redfield
H. A. Redfield

Henry Alonzo “H.A.” Redfield was born in Newbury, Ohio on November 7, 1872, and was graduated from Baldwin-Wallace College.  He began his teaching career in the country schools of Geauga County.  He married Eva Marie Hick of Gibbon, Nebraska.  They had two children, Robert Henry Redfield and Margaret Redfield.

In 1903, H.A. Redfield became the Superintendent of Schools for the Nottingham School District in the Village of Nottingham.  On August 17, 1906, the Bratenahl Board of Education selected Redfield as the first Superintendent of the Bratenahl Local District at an annual salary of $500.00.  As Superintendent and Principal of the Bratenahl School, Redfield oversaw the construction of the permanent school building on Brighton Avenue and managed the formative years of the Bratenahl School curriculum.  At the same time, Redfield served as the executive-secretary of the Northeastern Ohio Teachers Association, serving in that capacity for a dozen years.  H. A. Redfield served as Superintendent of the Bratenahl school system for five (5) years, from August 1906 to May 1911.

After serving as the Bratenahl School Superintendent, Redfield held several positions in the private sector.  He was the general sales manager for the H.A. Nystrom Co., manufacturers of globes and maps; employed at Ginn & Co.; manager of the mills for Smith-Hick Co. in Tutwiler, Mississippi; and Vice President and Manager of the Educational Department for The Dobson-Evans Company in Columbus, Ohio.

In January 1920, The Ohio Educational Monthly described H.A. Redfield as “a man of untiring energy, of unswerving fairness, and exceptional ability, a man who through his happy personality, has won for himself a host of warm friends among the school people of the state.”

H.A. Redfield died on April 9, 1953 in Eustis, Florida, where he had lived since his retirement in 1940.  He is buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Eustis beside his wife Eva, who died on January 20, 1961.