Richard Holton Cracroft

I returned from my mission. Resumed the pursuit of my English degree. An Impression somehow existed that I held some promise as a writer and thinker. However my attempts at writing were so poor that I was called into the department chairs office. Sr Cracroft expressed concern at my poor performance. Out of the blue he asked if I had served a mission. I told him of my recent return from the Swiss mission. He responded in the most animated way that he had also served in that mission, they he...

October 7, 2012

Dear Cracroft Family,

We had the opportunity of meeting Dr. Cracroft at a Holton family reunion in 2009 (I think) in Perry, Utah. It was very good to meet him. We were hoping to get to know him better but, because of his illness, etc. were not able to.

At the family reunion, he talked about his grandmother, Sarah Ann Holton White with love and appreciation. We believe he had the opportunity to meet her and many other loved ones again at his...

Dear Cracroft Family.
My heart breaks for you.... He was kind and gentle and very excepting and in the short time I got to know him, I adored him... I'm sending a huge hug to you, Janice and Rich as well as Elizabeth and Richie.
My life was greatly enriched just by knowing Dick.....

With great sadness, I learned last night of the passing of Professor Cracroft, the great BYU English professor and the beating heart and soul of Mormon literary criticism.

Dr. Cracroft was intelligent, jovial, irrepressibly optimistic and exceedingly generous. Not all great scholars are great teachers, but he was known and beloved as both. He was, in my mind, the consummate BYU professor - scholarly, accomplished, unpretentious, open-minded yet fully committed, fully believing, an...

Dear Janice:
How blessed we are to have known you and your husband. We have had just two years to claim you as friends, but during that time, we have enjoyed a meaningful glance into your past and shared with others the joy you have brought into the lives of many!
The funeral service was an unforgettable tribute to a wonderful man! His influence will last into the eternities, and your steadfastness, courage, and loyalty to him and to the Gospel are evidences of true love and...

President Cracroft was uniquely capable of buoying everyone in his presence - whether the audience was 500 or 1. Yes, he spoke eloquently, and with wit, but it was his entire spirit that would inspire you. With missionary work being so difficult at times, I always left his presence energized and knowing that I could handle anything. He lead his life as he preached - a "Christo-centric" life.
~ Mike Beeson

Dr. Cracroft's Literature in the American West and Humor in American Literature courses were my favorite classes at BYU. Fifteen years later, I find myself frequently mentioning Cracroft-isms--like the way he would say "Book," in a long, drawn out almost-whisper, to describe a really great book! Gosh, even Dr. Cracroft's obituary is full of spit and vinegar. (Guess it must have been the sarsaparilla!) Just thinking of Richard Cracroft makes me smile.

I was a student in Professor Cracroft's Mormon literature class at BYU and conducted some research for him. Professor Cracroft was a gifted and expansive reader, writer, critic, teacher, and thinker. I will remember him as a warm, kind, witty, and enthusiastic man who was interested in his students and who inspired their appreciation for literature and learning by sharing his own.

What a remarkable educator--in the original meaning of the word--he drew out knowledge from all of his students. No one lived and taught as transcendentally as Professor Cracroft. (And he kept us in stitches. I still chuckle when I recall him ending nearly every class with a tongue-in-cheek "And I say these things humbly...")
He lived deliberately, and now that he has sucked all the marrow out of life, he's on to drink the afterlife to the lees.
Thank you for one semester that has...