Date: Fri 13-Feb-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

Coke-Cramer-Photographer

Full Text:

(feature on photographer Coke Cramer)

Booth Library's February Exhibition: The Woman Behind The Lens, And Her

Inspiring Results

(with cuts)

BY KAAREN VALENTA

Coke Cramer's photographs are inspirational. Not just because of the subject

matter -- soaring mountain peaks, young monks at noon prayer, petroglyphs in

South African caves -- but also because of the woman behind the lens.

An expert hiker and prize-winning amateur photographer, Mrs Cramer, 68, has

been a team member on many international mountain adventures around the globe.

She has been on expeditions, sometimes joined by her husband, Al, to

Switzerland, New Zealand, South Africa, Russia, India, Austria, England,

Scotland, Hawaii and Siberia, often more than once.

She has also undergone two operations, in 1977 and 1994, for the removal of

brain tumors.

"I don't let it bother me -- I don't think about it," she says.

Nor does she let it stop her. When her doctor discovered she would need

surgery again in 1994, Coke Cramer decided not to tell him she was going to

New Zealand.

"I always wanted to go to New Zealand and hike the Milford Trail through the

McKinnon Pass," she explained. "It was easier not to tell the doctor. I went

to New Zealand and had the surgery when I came back."

An exhibit of Coke Cramer's photographs is on display this month in the adult

fiction department on the main floor of Newtown's C.H. Booth Library. The

photos included in the exhibition were taken on mountain heights and in

valleys below, always with a pack on her back and a trail nearby.

"When I take a trip, I take 20 to 30 rolls of film, color and black and white,

with me," she said. "That's my hobby."

For years she shot in one format with a 35mm Olympus camera and standard lens.

Recently she added a Canon automatic focus camera with a telephoto 35-80 zoom.

Many of her photographs were enlarged, matted, and entered into competitions

held by the General Federation of Women's Clubs. They usually won awards.

"This photograph [of an elephant in South Africa] went on to the national

[women's club] competition because the elephant's ears are way out, which I'm

told means it is poised to attack," Mrs Cramer said, pointing out one of the

photos she chose to include in the show.

The exhibition at the library was arranged by Marion Thompson, chairman of the

Arts Committee of the Newtown Woman's Club, to honor women in the arts as part

of the club's 30th anniversary year. Coke Cramer is a charter member of the

Newtown club.

Born Cora Abbott, she picked up the nickname Coke in school ("I was a cheap

date -- I didn't drink -- and still don't") and it stuck. She married Alvah

Cramer in 1953. They lived in Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., for ten years, where he

was a physical education teacher and she taught fifth grade. In 1963 Al Cramer

got a job as assistant principal of Newtown High School. The following year,

he became principal, a post he held for 20 years before taking a position at

the Connecticut Association of Schools, where he would remain for the next ten

years, in charge of high school sports.

Coke Cramer taught school in New York for 12 years before she came to

Connecticut. But as soon as her husband got the job in Newtown, she gave up

full-time work to become a substitute teacher.

"I substituted in Newtown and Bethel for nearly 30 years," she said. "I didn't

stop until after Al became fully retired three years ago."

The Cramers began hiking and camping as a family activity while raising their

son, Jeff, who graduated from Newtown High School in 1975. Jeff went on to get

a doctorate in chemistry at Rutgers University and become a research

scientist. He and his wife, Chris, a microbiologist, have two children,

Matthew, 9, and Andrew, 1«.

"When Jeff was growing up, teachers didn't make a lot of money," Mrs Cramer

said. "We joined the Appalachian Mountain Club and did something every year

like hiking the Presidential range in New Hampshire."

The Cramers went to Switzerland for their 20th wedding anniversary and to

London for their 25th. But after Jeff graduated from college and Coke had her

first surgery, she stepped up the pace, often traveling with a friend, Mary

Yeo, a breast cancer survivor who lives in Maine.

"I was bunkmates with Mary on a trip to India when Al didn't go, and we

traveled with her to South Africa and to Siberia," Mrs Cramer said. "We've

made a lot of nice friends on these trips and kept in contact with them over

the years."

In Siberia they shared close quarters in quonset huts usually used as

emergency sleeping quarters by rescue personnel in a base camp at the foot of

the Altai Mountains.

"We slept in one barrel and ate our meals in another," Coke said. "It wasn't

so bad. The others slept in tents that leaked like sieves."

To keep in shape for the expeditions, Coke hikes up and down Birch Hill Road

and on nearby trails like Mt Kent. To plan her trips, she keeps tabs on the

major excursion listings in the magazine published by the Appalachian Mountain

Club, an organization with more than 60,000 members worldwide.

"The oldest person on our last Siberian trip was 72, the youngest was 34," she

said.