William C. Cramer - Death and Legacy

Death and Legacy

Cramer was a member of Veterans of Foreign Wars, the St. Petersburg College Alumni Association Board of Directors, the American Legion, AMVETS, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Order of the Eastern Star, the Moose International, and the Shriners. He was United Methodist.

Cramer died at the age of eighty-one in South Pasadena, Florida, from complications of a heart attack. He was survived by his second wife of eleven years, the former Sarah Ellen Bromelow Hilber; three sons from his first marriage to Alice J. Cramer of Dothan, Alabama, William C. Cramer, Jr., an attorney in Panama City, Mark C. Cramer of Charlotte, North Carolina, and Allyn Walters Cramer of Dothan; two stepsons, Richard D. Hilber of St. Petersburg and Jason E. Hilber of Odessa, Florida, and eight grandchildren.

Cramer is interred at Woodlawn Memory Gardens in St. Petersburg.

Republican potential in Florida had been highly encouraging until the advent of the Cramer-Kirk schism. Republicans at the time were numerically weak, held few congressional seats, and lacked the depth and breadth needed to become a majority party. The legacy of the 1970 campaign rests with the squandering of opportunity. A minority party mistakenly presumed that it could function—quite prematurely and falsely as it turned out—like a majority party. After the 1970 schism, the Florida GOP began to accept defeat as natural and inevitable, particularly when noncontroversial Democrats considered "moderates" equipped with favorable media coverage and sheer political skill kept the Democrats entrenched by secure margins. But with time, Floridians rediscovered the benefits of the two-party system and demonstrated a willingness to reconsider Republicans for statewide leadership. The lessons of the Cramer-Kirk schism rest with the need to nurture firm political roots and eschew intraparty squabbles that work to enhance the opposition.

The William C. Cramer Post Office in St. Petersburg is named in his honor.