Calvin was born in Washington, D.C., on June 26, 1928, the youngest of three boys (brothers Hugh H. Cramer 1920-1980 and Admiral Shannon Davenport Cramer, Jr. 1921-2012), to Shannon Davenport Cramer and Mary Eileen Hazen (née Duffey) Cramer.
He graduated in 1947 from Washington's Central High School, where he was class president and lettered in football, basketball and track.
After briefly attending Princeton University, Calvin returned to Washington and married his high school sweetheart, Carol Joanne Seaman in 1948. Starting as an apprentice, he worked in all aspects of the printing trade, including for Washington's Evening Star newspaper and in a small printing shop he ran with his best friend from high school. He played for the Union Printers basketball team in Washington's industrial leagues, and he and Carol were also youth leaders at St. Paul's United Methodist Church in Kensington, Md.
In 1963, Calvin took his printing skills to the U.S. Civil Service Commission. But dissatisfied with being a government bureaucrat, he made a leap of faith and took a job as director of Sky Lake United Methodist Church Camp in Windsor, N.Y., in 1970. For the next 20 years, he followed his passion for outdoor Christian education there and at other administrative positions in western and central Pennsylvania.
Attribution: legacy.com
Full story: Cramer
