Rob Crosby, born into one of Banff’s pioneering families, has died at age 95.
Born on Nov. 12, 1921 in Banff, Crosby passed away peacefully on Aug. 15, surrounded by family.
Crosby was well-known, admired and active in the Banff community throughout the decades, including in the Rotary Club and the Banff Mineral Springs Hospital board of directors, as well as the Town of Banff’s Heritage Corporation.
“Rob was a respected gentleman, a good example for us all,” according to his obituary.
Sports were a big part of Crosby’s life – everything from skating and skiing to climbing and golf. He was inducted into the Banff Sports Hall of Fame in 2005 for lifetime achievements as an athlete.
From 1933-40, Crosby was the Alberta indoor and outdoor speed skating champion in every age category he competed in. Many of his provincial records stood for years. He was Canadian champion in speed skating in 1936.
As for skiing, Crosby won gold at the 1939 Canadian Amateur Ski Association championships in the senior downhill and won silver in slalom, while gold in slalom and silver in the senior downhill followed in 1940.
He enjoyed skiing the mountains around Banff until he was 90 years old.
Crosby talked about his life during a live interview with Chic Scott in 2012 at the Crosby Home on Bow Avenue. Also known as Abegweit, the house was built by Crosby’s father and it is where he and his siblings grew up.
Crosby was the youngest of Louis and Gertrude Crosby’s five children. His father was hired by Jim and Bill Brewster to become the Brewster company’s first accountant and later, president. His mom was instrumental in the family business, Deer Lodge in Lake Louise, which started out as a teahouse.
In the interview with Scott, Crosby recalled his dad’s love of sports.
“My dad was a speed skater when he was in P.E.I., so speed skating and track were his favourite sports when he came west; so everybody in our family had a pair of skates,” said Crosby in the interview. “The river used to freeze over and we’d often, as a family, skate up the river, go as far as we could and let the wind blow us back. I used to skate after school every day of the week.”
After winning some races in the North American championships, Crosby recalled being told he would be going to the Olympics.
“The Olympics at that point would have been 1940 and, of course, World War II came along and it was cancelled and that was the end of that,” he said in the interview with Scott.
Crosby worked as a bellhop so he could save enough money to take a mechanical engineering course at the University of Alberta, but he pursued his true dream by transferring to University of British Columbia to pursue aeronautical engineering.
After university, during the Second World War, he joined the army reserves, but transferred to the Royal Canadian Air Force where he had a successful career.
After pursuing a Master’s degree in aeronautical engineering in Boston, a two-year course he completed in 12 months, the highlight of his career with the air force came when he worked on the Avro Arrow project.
That aircraft, a CF-105, was an advanced supersonic, twin-engine, all-weather interceptor jet aircraft developed from 1949 until the federal government’s controversial cancellation of the project in 1959.
“Canada needed a special aircraft that was fast, go a long way, go high, carry weapons because there were Russians reconnaissance airplanes flying over the Northwest Territories and Hudson Bay,” Crosby recalled in the interview. “That was the beginning of the Avro Arrow program … that was the next five years of my career until it was cancelled.”
At that time, Crosby was transferred to air force headquarters. He was later offered a promotion in the advanced aircraft section or, because of his 25 years of service, including university time, he could retire with a pension.
“At the same time, the family was here in Banff and the family business was at Lake Louise ,so I flipped a coin, and came back to Banff,” he said.
Crosby was married to his wife Evelyn Mattern for 65 years. They had three children, Anita, Rick and Heather (deceased).
