George Cramer lived very full life
The ship’s bell and anchor proclaiming “Welcome Aboard” tell you this is a sailor’s home before you even reach the door.
An hour inside and you realize that George John Cramer was much more than a landed seaman. He was an unapologetic patriot, a political activist, a mentor, a cowboy poet, a gardener, an enthusiastic sportsman, a carpenter, a romantic to the core, a voracious reader, a student of life, and a highly skilled engineer who believed in making decisions with his heart. Some say he was Rathdrum’s “Renaissance man.”
While yet a young man George enlisted in the Navy. He served on the destroyer USS Orleck, and nearly three dozen other ships during his career, as chief ship’s engineer. He saw action in World War II and the Korean War and everything in between.
Three ships sank beneath him in the ravages of war, and each time he escaped without physical injury and was plucked from the deep, rescued from the carnage that surrounded him. Still, he loved his life on the ocean and asked to be buried at sea.
To the end of his days he was loyal to those with whom he served, traveling far and wide to attend reunions, and kept up memberships in half a dozen servicemen’s organizations. He enjoyed a lively correspondence with aging friends who still called him “Chief,” and he never lost his seaman’s swagger.
When he retired from the Navy, he found himself a young bride and moved into a second career. As an engineer in Boulder, Colo., he was part of the team that put our first manned space shuttle flights up and proud to still be serving his country. The Western culture made its mark on George; cowboy hats and boots suited him fine. He bought Western art pieces, paintings and sculptures he loved to study. The sailor fell in love with the mountains. He became a father – Scott, Marci, Marc, Gretchen – and family received top billing in his life.
Shaken by divorce, he gave up the high-stress life, hopped on his motorcycle and headed off to Aspen. This was in Aspen’s pre-glitterati days, when the wondrous mountains could work miracles in the soul. He worked maintenance service in the hospital, skied, made friends. He accepted his single status and moved on. One day he ran a marathon, and suffered a severe heart attack that brought predictions of perhaps three to five more years of life.
So, in 1978 he found his way to this little railroad town, bought a nice lot at the foot of Rathdrum Mountain, and proceeded to rebuild the woebegone cedar shack that passed for a house. He worked a wonder with it, and rock gardens bloomed under his care. Grapes and raspberries were freely shared, and the backyard hosted deer and wild turkeys, thirsty hummingbirds by the dozen.
Children in the neighborhood would come to visit this grandfatherly teacher and friend. When they got a little bigger, he would hire them to help out, and teach them bigger things. He would visit classrooms of troubled youth and challenge them to open their eyes to the possibilities of life. In recent years he would on occasion open the door and see a familiar face on a young body a couple of feet taller than he remembered. “I never forgot,” they would tell him. “Thank you.”
For 17 years, he was happy in his single life, comfortable in his own skin. Then he met Gerri Dunlap at s seniors breakfast – “Good mornin’, Darlin’.” She invited him over for pot roast. One hug, and he was lost. The next morning he called everyone he could think of – “I’m in love!”
They married, not “in the passions of youth, just two old hearts blending, searching and finding truth.” Gerri brought her silk flowers, recipes, faith, bright smile, full closets and curtains to his Rathdrum bachelor pad. She made the cedar house a home, and her daughter, Debra, became George’s third daughter. They had marvelous adventures, attending servicemen’s reunions, welding relationships across the country and across the street. Gerri won an invitation to Dr. Laura’s 50th Birthday Bash in Las Vegas, where they were entertained by all kinds of well-known figures.
He lived as he taught – motorcycling, surfing, skiing, sailing, growing – you name it, he enjoyed it. He would argue politics with his neighbor over the back fence or his sons over the phone so loudly you’d think they would never speak again. “THINK!” he’d yell. But they always came back for more, because love and respect went hand in hand with the strength of his convictions. At home, when he wasn’t arguing with his buddies or lamenting the loss of the open prairie, he was reading, sharing, doing his “paperwork.” He handwrote every letter, doing his part to try to fix this country that was “just going to heck.” He wanted his grandchildren to know “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
Thirty very full years after that first heart attack, he was finally felled by another. The sailor is going home to the sea.