How Rycroft Got Its Name
by Eric J. Rycroft
“The story is told that when the question came up of naming the land area that was divorced from Spirit River in 1920, four pioneers used a novel way of doing it. W.S.O. “Billy” English and H.E. “Doc” Calkin, partners in a general store near Rycroft, George Garnett, who operated a freight team from southern Alberta to Spirit River area, and Robert Henry Rycroft, an importer and commission agent of Edmonton, who had taken up land near Spirit River, decided to write their names on slips of paper, shake them up in a hat and pull out one name which would determine the name of the new entity. The name pulled out was “Rycroft”.
Robert Henry Rycroft was born in 1872 in Honolulu of English parents. For many years, Mr. Rycroft owned and operated a sugar and a coffee plantation, shipping the products between Honolulu, Japan and the Philippine Islands.
In 1906 Mr. Rycroft met a 21 year old Norwegian girl who was visiting in Honolulu and five years later he married her. They chose British Columbia for their honeymoon trip and while there, they learned of the challenging opportunities in the Peace River Country. By 1912, they had registered two parcels of land SW 25-78-6-W6th in Mr. Rycroft’s name and E 1/2 26-78-6-W6th in his wife’s name.
They became progressive developers of this land and took an active part in district affairs. The first meeting of the Spirit River Rural Municipality Number 829 was held January 2nd, 1917 in the Rycroft home and Mr.| Rycroft was named secretary-treasurer. Council meetings continued to be held in his home until a temporary office building was acquired in 1918. Mr. Rycroft also served on the school board and was a Justice of the Peace for many years.”
Rycroft Beginnings
by George Potter
“The town was named after R.H. Rycroft, a frontier Justice of the Peace. In 1920 a post office was established in Calkin’s store and Mr. Calkin was the first postmaster. Somehow the new post office was inadvertently named “Roycroft” which name it carried until 1934, when the Board of Trade was successful in having it corrected to Rycroft to agree with the name given to it by the railway when the line was built in 1916.”
https://www.discoverthepeacecountry.com/htmlpages/rycroft.html
So How Do we Fit in?
Samuel Eric Rycroft was born in Grande Prairie, AB on July 14, 1935 to Eric and Rita Rycroft. In 1959, he married Bette Steinke and together they had four children. Lana, Lance, Vance, and Clark. Lana Rycroft is my wife’s’ mother.
His Father Eric Jarmann Rycroft married his mother Laureta Maud Jennie Clark in 1933 and they had 8 children I believe. (I will do some digging and get it right!) Sam was one of them.
Eric Jarmann’s father was R.H Rycroft (the guy the town is named after) and who came over from Honolulu.
https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/LDMF-S7X/eric-jarmann-rycroft-1909-1993
“Brief Life History of Eric Jarmann”
When Eric Jarmann Rycroft was born on 30 January 1909, in Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii, United States, his father, Robert Henry Rycroft, was 36 and his mother, Helene Lovise Christiane Thommessen, was 23. He married Laureta Maud Jennie Clark in 1933, in Teepee Creek, County of Grande Prairie No. 1, Alberta, Canada. They were the parents of at least 1 daughter. He immigrated to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in 1912. He died on 4 January 1993, in Alberta, Canada, at the age of 83, and was buried in Teepee Creek, County of Grande Prairie No. 1, Alberta, Canada.
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