Dr. Ben attended and graduated from Andover High school in 1891 and from Bryant and Stratton Business College in Buffalo in 1892. He was graduated from Alfred University with the B.S. degree in 1899 and became principal of the village system, Hammond, La., the same year.
On April 12, 1900, Benjamin R. Crandall of Hammond and Miss Matilda Fogg of Shiloh, N. J., were united in marriage. The South proved unfavorable for Mrs. Crandall's health; so, after two years they moved to Rawlins, Wyoming, where Dr. Ben became superintendent of schools. The unusual altitude there was found detrimental to Mrs. Crandall's health; after five years the family moved to Idaho Falls, Idaho. Here Dr. Ben served as superintendent of the city schools for eight years.
California was the home of the Crandalls for twenty-four years under most challenging and interesting conditions. Election as city superintendent of San Bernardino came as an opportunity and a challenge. After two years Dr. Ben was offered a position as state supervisor of Agricultural Teacher Training and a professorship on the University of California faculty at Berkeley. Three years later Dr. Ben was tendered the presidency of the California State Polytechnic College at San Luis Obispo, where he inaugurated a forward-looking vocational and technical program. He was later supervising principal of the Wasco Union High School District near Bakersfield where he worked for six years until retirement in 1939.
The late President J. Nelson Norwood of Alfred University invited Dr. Ben to establish a Department of Counseling and Placement and to teach some courses in the School of Theology.
From 1939 to 1953 he was vocational counselor and placement secretary at Alfred University and lecturer in Rural Sociology and Business Law at Rural University School of Theology.
He was sent by the Seventh Day Baptist Missionary Society to make an Educational Survey of Jamaica, B. W. I., in 1947, and as a result of the survey and report, Crandall High School was established in Kingston, Jamaica, being named in his honor.
Mrs. Crandall died on Nov. 25, 1961.
Dr. Ben is survived by his son Burton and daughter-in-law Carol, four grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, two nephews, and one niece.
Funeral services were conducted by his pastor, Rev. David S. Clarke, and burial was at Alfred.
