Cruickshank, Elizabeth (1895-1989)

Elizabeth Cruickshank, 1973.

Bob Howard (Saskatchewan Archives Board) R-B12710

Elizabeth Cruickshank (Liz Roley) was a Regina-based journalist, naturalist, and community leader. Born Elizabeth Kierstead on August 25, 1895 in New Brunswick, she was educated at Fredericton Normal School. Arriving in Regina in January 1916, she soon met and married Warburton Kerr Cruickshank; they raised two children. Active in the Westminster Church, and their representative to the Local Council of Women (LCW) in 1935, she became LCW liaison to the On-to-Ottawa trekkers, participating in the trekkers' delegation that met with Premier Gardiner. She was LCW president (1936-38) and provincial Council of Women president (1939-42). Her many other activities involved operation of Regina's Community Chest sewing room (1932). Her extensive wartime work - including provincial chairman of Women's Activities for the National War Finance Committee (1942) - led to her naming to the Order of the British Empire (1948).

Prominent in the Saskatchewan Natural History Society, she proposed the creation of the Museum of Natural History to honour Saskatchewan Pioneers. She wrote for the Blue Jay, and scripted Department of Education nature broadcasts for CBC radio. She was best known as Leader-Post columnist “Liz Roley,” and was the author of A Second Look: Liz Roley's Nature Notes (1976). Cruickshank was active in the Regina Canadian Women's Press Club, receiving a Centennial Medal for Women in Journalism in 1967 and an Honorary Degree of Laws from the University of Regina in 1980. She died on May 31, 1989.

Anthony Jo

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