Butler County Genealogy Trails Kansas T. A. Kramer Bio

BUTLER COUNTY'S EIGHTY YEARS BIOS

T. A. KRAMER----At Home

( Transcribed by Lori DeWinkler)

So Theodore A. Kramer lies dead today in the beautiful home he had built on Walnut Hill, overlooking the picturesque Walnut River Valley that he loved and in the midst of a community of friends who were bound to him by the ties of good will and affection that only years of close acquaintanceship can knit. For a year he had been gone seeking health and finding it not, but persisting in that tireless, courageous, cheerful manner of his was so dominantly a characteristic of his nature. And today, at least he is home—home in the town that saw him pass from young manhood to maturity and on into a sweet unembittered twilight of age; home in the midst of the atmosphere that he cherished for its neighborliness and democracy; home, enshrined forever in the deathless memory of the virile manhood that is the El Dorado of the past, the present and the future. Theodore A. Kramer is home at last.

There was much to admire about him. He was a good lawyer—and a square one. He was honorable all the way and meticulous about the finer points of his duty. He added his mite of dignity to his profession, serving and loving faithfulness and never lowering his standards of loyalty and integrity. He was an excellent man of business, he rendered service in public offices, he dealth honestly by his clients. And yet, these things loom not so large today when all we have left is the memory of T. A. Kramer, of his spare figure as he swung along the street on his way to work. The attributes we remember are the cheery word of greeting, the neighborly attitude, the calm and never unfriendly poise, the deep, abiding kindly spirit that brooded over all. This was the T. A. Kramer that El Dorado knew….this is the friend for whom the two mourns today.

He achieved, he was successful; he was a man of affairs. But the mask that he engraved in lasting letters upon the affections of a town that knew him intimately for nearly forty years, as only a town can know those who labor in it and of it, stands simply because of the finer beauties of his spirit which so enriched his life and the lives of those about him.

T. A. Kramer is home---forever at home---securely shielded in the walls of neighborly love that shall always stand foursquare as long as human constancy abides.----July 28, 1923.