Creating a nested list obect - r

Question

I have a dataframe as shown below ( 1st row column names, 2nd row data elements)
From
Col_Name Col_Child_1 Col_Grand_Child_1 Col_Great_Grand_Child_1 Col_Great_Grand_Child_Size1 Col_Great_Grand_Child_2 Col_Great_Grand_Child_Size2 Col_Great_Grand_Child_3 Col_Great_Grand_Child_Size3 Col_Great_Grand_Child_4 Col_Great_Grand_Child_Size4
Flare analytics cluster AgglomerativeCluster 3938 CommunityStructure 3812 HierarchicalCluster 6714 MergeEdge 743
I am trying to convert the data elements in the second row ( Flare, analytics....) into a nested list as shown below
> Flare
$name
[1] "flare"
$children
$children[[1]]
$children[[1]]$name
[1] "analytics"
$children[[1]]$children
$children[[1]]$children[[1]]
$children[[1]]$children[[1]]$name
[1] "cluster"
$children[[1]]$children[[1]]$children
$children[[1]]$children[[1]]$children[[1]]
$children[[1]]$children[[1]]$children[[1]]$name
[1] "AgglomerativeCluster"
$children[[1]]$children[[1]]$children[[1]]$size
[1] 3938
$children[[1]]$children[[1]]$children[[2]]
$children[[1]]$children[[1]]$children[[2]]$name
[1] "CommunityStructure"
$children[[1]]$children[[1]]$children[[2]]$size
[1] 3812
$children[[1]]$children[[1]]$children[[3]]
$children[[1]]$children[[1]]$children[[3]]$name
[1] "HierarchicalCluster"
$children[[1]]$children[[1]]$children[[3]]$size
[1] 6714
$children[[1]]$children[[1]]$children[[4]]
$children[[1]]$children[[1]]$children[[4]]$name
[1] "MergeEdge"
$children[[1]]$children[[1]]$children[[4]]$size
[1] 743
My attempts so far are very elementary and reflects my struggle :).
x = list(name= test1$Col_Name, children = c(test1$Col_Child_1)
Any help on solving this puzzle is much appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Below is the output from dput(test1)
test1 = structure(list(Col_Name = structure(2L, .Names = "row1", .Label = c("Col_Name",
"Flare"), class = "factor"), Col_Child_1 = structure(1L, .Names = "row1", .Label = c("analytics",
"Col_Child_1"), class = "factor"), Col_Grand_Child_1 = structure(1L, .Names = "row1", .Label = c("cluster",
"Col_Grand_Child_1"), class = "factor"), Col_Great_Grand_Child_1 = structure(1L, .Names = "row1", .Label = c("AgglomerativeCluster",
"Col_Great_Grand_Child_1"), class = "factor"), Col_Great_Grand_Child_Size1 = structure(1L, .Names = "row1", .Label = c("3938",
"Col_Great_Grand_Child_Size1"), class = "factor"), Col_Great_Grand_Child_2 = structure(2L, .Names = "row1", .Label = c("Col_Great_Grand_Child_2",
"CommunityStructure"), class = "factor"), Col_Great_Grand_Child_Size2 = structure(1L, .Names = "row1", .Label = c("3812",
"Col_Great_Grand_Child_Size2"), class = "factor"), Col_Great_Grand_Child_3 = structure(2L, .Names = "row1", .Label = c("Col_Great_Grand_Child_3",
"HierarchicalCluster"), class = "factor"), Col_Great_Grand_Child_Size3 = structure(1L, .Names = "row1", .Label = c("6714",
"Col_Great_Grand_Child_Size3"), class = "factor"), Col_Great_Grand_Child_4 = structure(2L, .Names = "row1", .Label = c("Col_Great_Grand_Child_4",
"MergeEdge"), class = "factor"), Col_Great_Grand_Child_Size4 = structure(1L, .Names = "row1", .Label = c("743",
"Col_Great_Grand_Child_Size4"), class = "factor")), .Names = c("Col_Name",
"Col_Child_1", "Col_Grand_Child_1", "Col_Great_Grand_Child_1",
"Col_Great_Grand_Child_Size1", "Col_Great_Grand_Child_2", "Col_Great_Grand_Child_Size2",
"Col_Great_Grand_Child_3", "Col_Great_Grand_Child_Size3", "Col_Great_Grand_Child_4",
"Col_Great_Grand_Child_Size4"), row.names = 2L, class = "data.frame")

Answer 1

the code below does not generalise well, so watch out and good luck with it :)
## get rid of factors
dat <- data.frame(lapply(dat, as.character), stringsAsFactors=FALSE)
## identify descendants -- hoping that the great grand children do not reproduce further
Children.names <- grep('Col_Child_[[:digit:]]', colnames(dat))
Grand_Children.names <- grep('Col_Grand_Child_[[:digit:]]', colnames(dat))
Great_Grand_Children.names <- grep('Col_Great_Grand_Child_[[:digit:]]', colnames(dat))
Great_Grand_Children.sizes <- grep('Col_Great_Grand_Child_Size[[:digit:]]', colnames(dat))
## putting it together into a list of lists (of lists)
nggc <- length(Great_Grand_Children.sizes)
ggc <- lapply(1:nggc, function(i) list(name=dat[1,Great_Grand_Children.names[i]], size=as.numeric(dat[Great_Grand_Children.sizes[i]])))
gc <- list(name=dat[1,Grand_Children.names[1]], children=ggc)
## fingers crossed now...
ll <- list(name=dat$Col_Name)
ll$children <- list( list(name=dat[1,Children.names[1]], children=gc) )