Edward Kramer

Edward Francis Kramer was born August 7, 1898 in New Iberia, LA. He attended Miss Fastnache’s Graded Institute and New Iberia High. He then went to Louisiana State University where he attended Audubon Sugar School completing a 5-year course in 4 years, becoming one of the country’s few sugar chemists. Because there were so few chemists specializing in sugar production, he and his classmates were very much in demand and worked in the U. S. during Fall/Winter sugar season and in the tropics during their sugar season, February-July. Edward worked in Panama, Jamaica, and finally, for numerous years on the island of Trinidad, British West Indies, 6 miles off the coast of Venezuela, South America. After his children started to school he quit working in the tropics and worked year round for Meeker Sugar Refinery Corp in Meeker, LA. First he worked as a Chemist, then as general manager of the mill. Later he took on managing the sugar cane farms as well.
He bought Bend Field farm from the Corp and retired from the Mill to farm, which he loved. He raised cotton and sugar cane very successfully. He also raised sheep (a flock of 200) and at a different time, white faced cattle and Black Angus Cattle. He had some huge hogs for a while, but not very many. Ed was one of the first in the Meeker area to get into scientific farming, spearheading working with the Agricultural Extension Office in terracing his land and rotating crops to conserve topsoil and return nutrients to the land.
Ed was asked to serve as the first president of the Rotary Club of Lecompte, LA and as president of that, was asked to serve on the Rapides Parish Library Board in Alexandria, LA. He was very instrumental in bringing a library system to Alexandria and Rapides Parish with branches and bookmobiles to serve outlying areas and he hired Miss Sally Farrell, the first professional librarian to head up the Rapides Parish Library System.