Born in Bessarabia, Russia (now largely Moldova). Trained as a tailor, Creemer emigrated to Canada in 1920 and first lived in Toronto, working for Tip Top Tailors, etc. He married in 1927; shortly thereafter the couple moved to Winnipeg, where Creemer started his own tailoring business. In October 1941 the family moved to Vancouver, where Creemer's brother and sister already lived. He started the Fashion Garment Co., a made-to-measure ladies tailoring establishment whose clientele included visiting celebrities such as Martha Rae and Ella Fitzgerald. Tailoring seems to have been the family trade: Dave's brother Max was also in the profession, as president of the Reliable Garment Co. Dave Creemer died at age fifty-one of complications from an ulcerated stomach.

Creemer learnt to place chess in Russia. While in Toronto he was secretary of the Judean Chess Club, and played against Emanuel Lasker in an exhibition in 1926. In 1930 he defeated Sir George Thomas in Winnipeg, also during a simultaneous. He won the Manitoba championship in 1934, the Winnipeg title in 1937, and was one of Abe Yanofsky's first coaches. After moving to Vancouver, Creemer won the Vancouver Chess Club championship in 1942 and was instrumental in the founding of the Vancouver Jewish Chess Club in 1945. He was Vancouver champion 1946-48, but his greatest achievement as a player was winning the Open tournament held to celebrate the Vancouver Diamond Jubilee in July 1946.

Although Creemer was a strong player, his lasting legacy lies in the realm of chess organization and promotion. He held various positions on the BCCF Executive, including president, secretary, and publicity manager, and was chairman of the organizing committee which brought the Canadian Championship to the West Coast for the first time in 1951. John G. Prentice paid tribute to Creemer for his "tremendous amount of extra work, corresponding with leading players, making arrangements for visits from master players and staging tournaments and exhibitions." From the summer of 1947 until his death Dave Creemer wrote a weekly chess column in the Vancouver Province newspaper: each Saturday the column included a chess problem ladder, news from local, Canadian, and international events, and usually several games. This did much to publicize the BCCF and chess in general throughout the province.

The current trophy for the B.C. Junior Championship is the Dave Creemer Trophy. After his death a Dave Creemer Memorial Fund was established "for the purpose of introducing and encouraging chess in the schools of Vancouver and throughout B.C., also in high schools and among other youth groups or organizations" (BCCF Special Meeting, 13 January 1954). Monies from the fund were used to supply chess sets to schools and trophies for school competitions; in 1967 a BCCF motion was passed which stated "that the Trustees of the Dave Creemer Fund be instructed to wind up the Fund and to make the money left in the fund available to the Junior Chess Co-ordinator, and that the Junior Chess Co-ordinator ensure that the name of Dave Creemer is suitably perpetuated in the field of Junior Chess." This was done by holding the 2003 Junior Championship and naming the current trophy in his memory, on the fiftieth anniversary of his passing.