Her father was in the lumber industry; her older sister was editor Irita Bradford Van Doren.

[1] She graduated from Florida State College for Women in 1909,[2] with further musical studies at the Juilliard School.

[3][4] Bradford taught piano and harmony at the Little Rock Conservatory and College for Women in Arkansas in the 1910s.

[3][6] Artist Julian E. Levi painted a portrait of Boni playing recorder in 1940.

[8] Bradford married Greenwich Village bookseller and publisher Charles Boni Jr. in 1931.