CRANE, EDWARD E. (1883-1959). Edward E. Crane, attorney, law professor, and university regent, was born in Cleburne, Texas, on December 11, 1883, the son of Eula Olatia (Taylor) and Martin McNulty Crane.qv He graduated from the University of Texas with B.Litt. and L.L.B. degrees in 1906 and entered practice with his father's law firm in Dallas. Crane received a commission as first lieutenant in the field artillery in 1917 and served in France until 1919. He returned to Dallas after the war and continued to practice law. Governor Dan Moodyqv appointed him to the board of regents of the University of Texas in June 1927; Crane served on the board until January 1933 and made perhaps his most significant contribution as chairman of the Board for Lease of University Lands. He joined the University of Texas law faculty at the end of his term as regent in 1933 and taught until 1941. At the university he was instrumental in establishing the legal aid clinic. Crane was appointed regional attorney for the Office of Price Administration in 1942 but retired later that year to resume private practice. On June 12, 1937, he married Mrs. Donna (Roberts) Fitzgerald, widow of Hugh Nugent Fitzgerald.qv She died in 1938. Crane was a Baptist, a Mason, and a Democrat, and held membership in the American, Texas, and Dallas bar associations. He died in Dallas on October 9, 1959, and was buried at Grove Hill Cemetery.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Edward Crane Papers, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin. Ellis A. Davis and Edwin H. Grobe, comps., The Encyclopedia of Texas, 2-vol. ed. Dallas Morning News, October 11, 1959. National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. 44. Vertical Files, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin.
Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
