DAVID L. CRANE

CRANE--David L. Age 90, of West Palm Beach FL, and recently of Dalton MA, passed away on July 6, 2012. Son of Aaron and Hannah Cohen, David was a native New Yorker. Often regaling his children with Runyonesque tales of his West Side childhood, he witnessed the building of the George Washington Bridge and he played street baseball with neighborhood boys. Babe Ruth tossed an occasional ball with them. Always a rascal, David once happened upon New York City Police routing a gang; he stayed to watch the firefight. However, he neglected to mention this to his parents who later saw a newspaper photo of the raid; young David was perched just outside of the line of fire. David attended the University of Illinois and served in the US Army during WWII. He co-founded Timpson, Kramer and Crane, a successful food brokerage business in the mid-60s. A lifelong Republican, he was surrounded by a family of staunch Democrats, providing fodder for his love of boisterous political argument. Above all else, David valued family, friends and a good party. When his final illness robbed him of his voice, he joined in a raucous dinner by whispering a joke to one of his daughters line by line so that she could broadcast it to the clan. His beloved wife, Carol, his daughters, Susan Crane (Terry Etapa), Andrea Crane-Rabe, and Nancy Crane (Tom Butler), his brother Gerald (Joan), his grandsons Eric and Dan Rabe (Paula), and numerous nephews and nieces survive him. When asked what he wanted his obituary to say David retorted: "Tell anyone who owes me money to send it to Carol."