Raymond E. Crews Jr., Lawrence

Mr. Crews died Wednesday, March 30, 2005, at Missouri Veterans Home in Cameron, Mo.

He was born Aug. 6, 1923, in Bartlesville Okla., the son of Raymond E. and Mabel Brown Crews. He graduated from Odessa High School in Odessa, Mo., in 1941. He received a law degree in 1949 from the University of Missouri in Kansas City.

Mr. Crews served in the U.S. Naval Air Corps as a pilot on the USS Lake Champlain from 1943 to 1945. He was a chartered property casualty underwriter. He was a claims manager for Great American Insurance Group from 1959 to 1953, vice president of W.B. Johnson and Co. from 1953 to 1968 and G. Findlay Reed from 1968 to 1981.

He became senior vice president and a member of the board of directors at Financial Guardian in 1981, where he continued on as president until he retired in 1995. He was a charter member of Alvamar Country Club, a member of the Missouri Bar, until he retired, and the Kansas City Club. He was also chairman of the Board of Managers of the Downtown Branch of the Y.M.C.A. in Kansas City in 1960.

Mr. Crews married Barbara J. Ewing on Sept. 3, 1948, in Lawrence. She survives, of the home.

Other survivors include two sons, Raymond E. “Chip” III, Washington, D.C., and Byron Ewing, Shakopee, Minn.; two daughters, Penelope Crews Seay, Austin, Texas, and Jennifer Crews Ruark, Raytown, Mo.; three brothers, Richard L., Odessa, Donald G., Overland Park, and Gerald N., Kansas City; two sisters, Betty Crews Mueller, Westminster, Colo., and Judy Crews Seevers, Odessa; and five grandchildren.

The family will receive friends form 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Friday at Warren-McElwain Mortuary.

The family suggests memorials to Missouri Veterans Home or Regional Care Hospice, sent in care of the mortuary.