A memorial service for Robert Charles Crawford, 83, a mathematician and educator, will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, January 7, 1994 at the RAND Corporation, 1700 Main Street, Santa Monica, Calif.
Crawford, who was also an author, athlete, coach, inventor and tax accountant, died on December 14, 1994 of complications from a heart attack and stroke at his home in Malibu, California.Crawford taught mathematics at Salt Lake City's East High School from 1933 to 1937; at Santa Monica High School in Santa Monica, California from 1939 to 1959; and at Santa Monica College from 1961 to 1976.
In 1958, he co-authored a widely used calculus text. Several years later, he became study director of a U.S. Department of Education-funded program at UCLA that pioneered in teaching algebra to first graders. In 1979 he published "Fractions in Pictures".
But his interests and activities were innumerable. A tax accountant, he prepared an estimated 55,000 returns over a period of 50 years. An inventor, he shared a world patent for an earthquake-proof construction design. An athlete, he played softball in a variety of industrial leagues and pitched for the Hollywood Stars of the Pacific Coast Baseball League. Later, turning to coaching, he directed a newly-formed Utah women's softball team to a national ranking in the late 1930s, coached senior A.A.U basketball teams in Utah and California, and participated in the selection of the 1948 U.S. Olympic basketball team with coaches Adolph Rupp and Hank Iba. Still later, in the early 1950s, Crawford owned the Porterville Padres minor-league baseball team.
A native of Salt Lake City, Crawford earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Utah and a master's in education from UCLA.
He is survived by his wife, of 25 years, Natalie Wilson Crawford; children, Robert G. Crawford of Ft. Walton Beach, Florida; and Peggy C. Elam of Redlands, Calif.; sisters, Dorothy Snarr of Canyonville, Oregon.; and Louise Knapp of Riverside, Calif.; brother, Doug Crawford of Redwood City, Calif.; seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to: Samohi Alumni Assoc.-Bob Crawford Memorial, 527-21st Place, Santa Monica, Calif. 90402.
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