Crocker was the first cousin of William Henry Crocker, humanitarian and president of three West Coast institutions: the Crocker Bank (once the fourteenth largest bank in the nation), the University of California Board of Regents, and the California Academy of Sciences. When much of the city of San Francisco was destroyed by the fire from the 1906 earthquake, William Crocker and his bank were major forces in financing reconstruction. William's wife Ethel was one of the leading California patrons of French Impressionist art.