[3] She attended the Ethel Walker School,[7] then earned a bachelor's degree from Vassar College in French in 1939.

[8] She was referred to as an "impractical idealist," a "do-gooder" and a "posy-picker"[9] but she was credited as a leader in environmentalism, as one of the founders of the San Francisco Bay Association in 1961.

[2][13] She served on boards of directors for the National Audubon Society, People for Open Space, the Oakland Museum of California, and the San Francisco Exploratorium.

In 1963, she was a delegate to the White House Conference on Natural Beauty, and helped to organize California's state equivalent.

[3] Cranmer married mining executive Donald H. McLaughlin in 1948[5] and settled in Berkeley, California.