Robert Alan Cramer

I was born on March 22 (my mother’s birthday), 1933 at Altoona, Pennsylvania. My early years were spent in Tyrone, PA and then at Roots Crossing, PA. It was at Roots Crossing that my father, Carl built a house, or should I say started to build a house. It was never completely finished while we lived there. Some of the walls only had sheet rock installed on one side. The upstairs did not have any sheet rock, and in the winter it was so cold that ice would freeze if you happened to take a glass of water up to the bed room. We didn’t have inside plumbing, only an outhouse some 100 yards from the house. The kitchen sink which was installed on a wood top had a small hand pump which had to be primed with a small amount of water every time you wanted to use it. The water for the pump came from a concrete cistern in the basement of the house. Drinking water came from a larger hand pump located on top of a hand dug well outside. The cistern water was collected from rain that was piped from the roof gutters.

Our house was located at the foot of the mountains, bordered by a mountain stream on the North. It really was a beautiful place to live as a child. We had many adventures roaming the woods and playing by the creek. My brother, Bud and I were very resourceful in creating things to play with. We found an old wagon axle and wheel and used it to make a circular swing. We installed the axle upright in the ground and then would grab the outside edge of the wheel and run around until our feet were swinging off the ground in a circular motion. (our version of a merry-go-round)

All of our adventures and fun at Roots Crossing took place just after the depression and my dad was struggling to support us. (There were 5 children.) We were really poor, but as children we didn’t seem to notice that we were. Our father had provided something much more valuable than riches. He had provided us an opportunity to experience God’s creation, self reliance, thankfulness for what we had, and a good work ethic as we watched him provide for us. There are so many interesting things that happened at Roots Crossing I would have to write a book to cover them all.

Since employment was almost non existent in Pennsylvania, my father decided to move to Niagara Falls, New York about 1941. He went to work at the Carborudum Company and we moved into a rental house at 1620 Linwood Avenue. It was quite a shock moving to the city after living in the country. One nice thing was the indoor plumbing and running water. After living in Niagara Falls for a few years, my dad found an old farm house on Chestnut Road and was able to purchase it. (I believe he bought it for $3000 (19 acres) and once each year for 30 years, he went to Mr. Nichols house in Lewiston and paid him $100 toward what he owed.) Some of the reasons for the move may have been the fights that Bud and I got into with the city kids. Also, the bad habits and vocabulary we were learning from the neighbor kids.

Once again our lives changed on the farm as we remembered our early existence in Pennsylvania. It wasn’t mountainous but there were woods, large apple trees and new adventures. The Cramer ranch, as we called it, was a great place to grow up. But, there comes a time when you meet a girl that makes you forget about all of those wonderful childhood dreams and you think of love. My wife, Judee (Wilson) was that girl. We met at Grace Baptist Church and were married just after high school. We first lived in an apartment in the upstairs of her parent’s home in Olcott, NY. Judee’s dad Elbert Wilson was a plumber and I worked for him and learned the plumbing trade.

We next bought a house on Roosevelt Beach in Wilson where I went into business for myself. In between this move, I served two years in the Army, 16 months in South Korea. (at the end of the Korean War).

While living at Roosevelt Beach we had two children, girls Nicky and Leslie. After living in that house for 12 years, we felt led to go into some Fulltime Christian Work. This led to our decision to answer a call to go to Prairie Bible Institute in Alberta, Canada. We sold everything and moved there with our 1962 Chevy and a trailer laddened with our remaining early goods. We stayed at the Institute from 1967 to 1969 and then moved back to New York State.

We lived on Transit Road in Newfane in a rented house for 7 years. During that time I was engaged in a ministry called Mobile Challenge. We moved from there to a house we bought in Pennsylvania. I continued the ministry until 1979 at which time we quit the ministry and moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

There I found a job with Bridgers and Paxton Consulting Engineers. I remained with this company as an estimator and project inspector until 1999, when we moved back to Newfane, NY. We lived in a community called Rio Rancho (river-ranch) just north and west of Albuquerque which was not quite country, but not city either.

The blanks between all of our life experiences, moves, vocations, etc. will have to be filled in verbally as you ask me personally. Or maybe someday I really will have time to detail the information in a book.