Barbara Gale Cramer

There will be memorial service at the Historic Church on Marco Island in November 2022, Interment of Ashes to follow.

---------------------

Barbara was born March 19, 1933, in Canadian, Texas, during a raging mud storm. Her father Millard Humphrey and mother Sarah refused the Doctor's advice to name her "Sandy Gale."

Barbara was multicultural, before there was a name for it. She weaponized the phrase "I had a friend..." to keep us kids out of trouble.

Problem was, she really did have unusual encounters growing up through the Great Depression and World War 2. She sat with the Hopi and Navajo artisans on their sales blankets, every day, when her dad had the newspaper in the 4 Corners area. She was bilingual from living with the housekeeper's family, when her mom went "walkabout" in the Mexican desert. She tried to flush the pastor's cat down the toilet in Oklahoma City, and they had to fish her out of the opium den in Holbrook, where she was visiting all the happy Chinese laundry clients.

Then her family got respectable, and settled in Phoenix, where she graduated from North High, in 1951. She entered Arizona State University pre-med, but switched to Elementary Education, because who doesn't want to read "Winnie The Pooh" for homework? Graduating in 1955, she was convinced the only reason she was ASU Homecoming Queen was because her Gamma Phi Beta sisters captured every stray dog on campus, and dressed them all with "Vote For Barb" placards.

I'd love to tell you Barbara was a faithful member of one church. But she was a Generic Committed Christian, mainly thanks to her upbringing. Her maternal grandfather, a dedicated German Lutheran, married her maternal grandmother, from a Scottish Presbyterian missionary family. The clan stopped short of disinheriting her, but it didn't make for pleasant Sundays. Her Paternal grandmother was non-fiddlin Church of Christ, and her paternal grandfather was a Welshman Nonconformist. It was really no surprise that she rebelled by spending her free time partying with the Catholics at the Newman club.

Making absolutely sure she would break the family curse of getting involved with pastors and missionaries, she married Donald Cramer in 1955; a young Airforce Officer, and confirmed follower of the Chinese Pagan philosopher Lin Yutang. No one could've predicted that Dr. Yutang would convert to Christianity in the late 50's; and shortly thereafter, so did my dad.

Nine years later, when he went to seminary, he swore mom left claw marks in the dirt all the way from Arizona to Virginia.

Folks, there were years in the mission field, and associate and senior pastoring, in the Episcopal church. There were decades of choirs, teas and outreaches; silent retreats with Anglicans, and Pentecostal revivals with non-denoms. There were Baptist bible studies, Methodist concerts and Jewish Bat Mitzvahs. Her last happy home church was Jesus the Good Shepherd Anglican church, in Las Vegas, Nevada. And I'm not EVEN telling you how she ended up there.

My sister Gale wants me to include Barbara's fascination with history. She dragged us to every historic church and battlefield on the east coast. She was a bear about primary source research, and spent months at the DAR archives in Atlanta. She could tell historical stories that made you just weep for the injustices done to all your kin, (real or imagined), from the battle of Culloden to the Cherokee Trail of Tears.

I should also mention she was a member of Bluebirds, Rainbow Girls, Daughters of the Nile, and who knows what else.

Barbara was smart, multicultural, ecumenical, funny, and politically opinionated. But none of these things were her superpower.

In the 70's, Barb decided to become a "real teacher". In 1979, she finished her Master's with a specialty in reading and gifted ed; and got her first classroom in the mountains. This county school was in the foothills of the Appalachians. It was known for low incomes, low reading scores, and behavior problems. There was a glitch that year in the system, and she didn't get the kids' previous grades, test scores or diagnostics on start up. When, after 3 weeks of working with each of the 34 children, the data finally came in, she discovered she had already diagnosed the core issues and academic levels of each child.

She had a stack of referrals for testing and tutoring ready to submit to the administration. But they informed her that not only was there no money for that, but if she insisted on following the legal mandate, her contract would not be renewed. It was the law that if your child needed help, the teacher should design and implement an individual learning plan for each child, in each class, separate from the rest of the classroom. Knowing she couldn’t do that for the 40% of her class that was either learning or behavior challenged, she researched and created a system that would make self-motivation irresistible. Her kids jumped an average of 4 grade levels that year.

The following year, they jumped 4 grade levels in math, and 6 grade levels in reading. You would never know there were any behavior problems in that class, if you happened to drop in. Some would be working at their desk, some would be under giant boxes reading comic books, others would be curled up with Kermit the Frog, doing math games. I think that was the year she made Star Teacher.

Her techniques, research, and diagnostics would boggle your mind. Year after year, no matter where she taught; rich or poor, east coast or west, private or public, every race, every religion; her kids jumped significantly in all areas.

Her superpower? She quietly believed they were all gifted; and it was her job to show each one how they could achieve.

Barbara spent years behind the scenes, supporting us, supporting Dad's ministry, and sewing and knitting for people she never met. Making Star Teacher was a great achievement. But her real reward was knowing that kids who couldn't read, or couldn't control their tempers, had been lifted up out of that darkness, to achieve some kind of joy.

She thoroughly followed Jesus' teaching in Matthew 6:3.

"When you give to the needy, don't let your left hand know what your right is doing".

If you want to honor Barb or support us as we grieve, please, no flowers or online memorials. We ask that you find someone who doesn't quite fit the "norm"; and quietly lift them up. Don't tell anyone else.

*Maybe send Western Union cash to your worried auto mechanic's family in Cuba? Because, "I feel helpless to do anything over here."

*The single mom in your carpool? Tell her that you miss being around kids- would she mind if you babysat for a few hours?

*That old guy who talks your arm off? Ask him to tell you stories about the old days over lunch.

Stuff like that.

If you decide to do that, please check back to this site, and simply comment, "Done."

Thank you, sincerely, for your prayers and gracious kindness. We feel the love.

On behalf of the surviving family of Barbara Cramer:

Daughters: Dawn Cramer & Gale and Steve McKibbon

Brothers: Colin Edgar Humphrey & Aaron Schave

Brothers and Sisters-In-Law: Phil and Holly Cramer & Steve Cramer and Gale Young

Cousin: Jan Nichols

Grandkids: Diana and Eddy Barnett, Alexandra Ross, Ariel and Jim Moreton, Steve and Mina McKibbon, Ross McKibbon and Francesca Lombardo

Great Grandies: Rufus and Alfred Barnett

Best Friends: Vivian Schwarz, Rev. Martha Jenkins, Julia Cromartie, Betty Sue McDowell-Thompson