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PHILIP KRAMER
Vol. 3, p. 1298

Now a resident of Tulsa, with a good growing business in the handling
of insurance, bonds and loans, Phillip Kramer has been more or less
closely identified with Oklahoma since the opening of the Cherokee
strip more than twenty years ago. He is a pioneer, and in the course
of his varied activities has reached a position of standing and
influence. His offices in Tulsa are in the First National Bank
Building.

Phillip Kramer was born in Spencer County, Indiana on his father's
farm, March 29, 1872, a son of John H. and Johnnette (BECKER) Kramer.
His parents were born in the Rhine Valley of Germany, his father on
June 9, 1818, and his mother in 1821. His father died February 26,
1884, and his mother in 1895. They were married in Germany, and to
their union were born five sons and six daughters, six of whom as
still living. Phillip was the eleventh child. In 1850 the parents with
four children embarked on a sailing vessel and started for the land of
freedom and promise. They were thirty days on the ocean, an
exceedingly rough and stormy passage, and many of the passengers had
abandoned hope of ever seeing land again. After landing in New York
City they came on west to Spencer County, Indiana, where John H.
Kramer located in an undeveloped country and took up farming and stock
raising. He was an excellent type of the sturdy, self-reliant,
liberty-loving and vigorous German, especially of that class which
came so numerously to America during the revolutionary troubles of
1848. He set himself bravely to the task of hewing a farm out of the
wilderness, and during the succeeding years cleared up through his own
labors many acres formerly covered with virgin timber. At the time of
his death his career was represented in material value by the
possession of 680 acres of fine farming land in Spencer County. He
cared nothing for public office, was a democrat in politics, and a
member of the Lutheran Church.

Phillip Kramer grew up on the substantial home of his father in
Spencer County, attended the public schools there and afterwards the
Normal School at Danville, Indiana. He and his brother John were for a
time partners in managing the old homestead place, and at the age on
nineteen Phillip Kramer secured a certificate and spent six months of
teaching in his home district. He went on the road selling
agricultural implements for the BURR Brothers, and later for one
season represented the Milwaukee Junior Harvester Company Binders. In
1893 he came to Oklahoma, and joined in the run after the opening of
the strip to Perry. He staked out a lot in the public square, not
knowing that his claim was reserved for public purposes. He and a
number of others who made the same mistake were involved in many
troubles incident to the contest, and he subsequently bought a town
lot in that city. Subsequently Mr. Kramer removed to Oklahoma City,
and engaged in the real estate business, and finally took up the fire
insurance business with Frank JOHNSON under the firm name of Johnson &
Kramer. After selling out this business he returned to Indiana, spent
six months there, and then came back to Oklahoma and located in Tulsa.
Here Mr. Kramer has built up a large business in handling fire
insurance and also bond and loan. He represents the following fire
insurance companies: Glens Falls Insurance, the National Union, The
Camden Fire, the Prussian National, the Agricultural Insurance Company
of Watertown, New York, and the Royal Indemnity of New York.

Mr. Kramer was appointed to the office of city treasurer of Tulsa by
Mayor MARTIN and served one term. He is a democrat in politics, and a
man of vigorous citizenship and in his personal and business relations
noted for his unswerving integrity of character. He is affiliated with
the Knights of Pythias. On February 9, 1901, Mr. Kramer married
Gertrude ALLENDORPH. Mrs. Kramer was born in Missouri. Their two
children are: John Henry and Phillip C.

Typed for OKGenWeb by Lee Ann Collins, March 2, 2000.