Vicki Armstrong Ricketts

Vicki Armstrong Ricketts, devoted mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, and friend, died on January 6 at the age of 74 in Saint George, Utah. She was a light who always gave more than she took. She was a worker and an optimist, an early riser whose smile radiated warmth. She saw the best in people and treated them that way. Never preachy, Vicki simply lived her faith, which rested firmly on her love of God and her fellow man. She was an amazing cook and found joy in feeding those she loved, which was everybody she knew.
Born in Bear River, Utah, to dry farmer and rancher parents, Vicki was the baby in the family and attended a one-room schoolhouse in Promontory as a girl. After graduating from Bear River High School, she was the first member of her family to go to college, attending Utah State University where she embraced sorority life with her Alpha Omicron Pi sisters and studied to become an elementary school teacher. Her farm upbringing produced grit and toughness in Vicki that would first be tested when she lost both her older sister Beverly and father Floyd in 1969. As she would do throughout her life, Vicki kept moving forward, graduating from college and marrying Larry Armstrong. They settled in Sandy, Utah, and had one son. Then, in 1976, Larry died, making Vicki a young single mother.
For the next ten years, Vicki leaned on her supportive extended – Woodward, Armstrong, Moss – and ward families as she built a life for her and Andy. While she no doubt felt despair and grief, she did not wallow in it. She never missed a ballgame and served for years as team mom and manager of the Hillcrest youth football league snack shack. She volunteered for Festival of Trees for years and embraced service in her beloved Sandy Hills Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
After a decade as a single mother, Vicki was blessed to marry the love of her life, Larry Ricketts, in 1986. Larry and Vicki grew into one of the world’s great couples, committed to each other and to their family, which now included six total children. Vicki quickly became the glue that bound together and strengthened this blended family. Family was her truest joy, and her greatest gift was having her family grow to include Larry’s five amazing children who treated her with such kindness and made her life so full. While their life had ups and downs, as life does, Vicki and Larry remained devoted to each other through it all, complementing one another’s strengths and supporting each other’s weaknesses. Vicki and Larry were a constant at ballgames, graduations, dance recitals, and school plays. They hosted countless family dinners, neighborhood barbeques, and ice cream socials, cruised like teenagers with their Corvette Club, and beamed with pride when they talked about their grandchildren’s military service or took their grandchildren shopping for missionary clothes.
Professionally, Vicki was a dynamo. She began her career as a teacher at James E. Moss Elementary School in Millcreek and ended it more than 40 years later as the principal at Spring Lane Elementary in Holladay. In between she was a teacher, Title One Specialist, and administrator at schools across the Salt Lake valley, teaching thousands of students and mentoring hundreds of fellow teachers and staff.
Vicki and Larry moved to Saint George from Sandy in 2017 following her retirement and found new adventure in their life at SunRiver. As Larry later struggled with health problems, Vicki doted on him and answered his occasional (ahem) grumpiness with love. When Larry died in September 2021, it left her alone again. Though her toughness and grit certainly would have pushed her forward through this new phase in life, her death has brought the sweet blessing of reunion with Larry and all those whom she had loved and lost.
Her family would like to thank all those who with their love and service made Vicki’s life so wonderful and full, including her dear friends from the old Sandy Hills Ward, her newer friends in SunRiver, extended family and friends across the globe, and her wonderful students, teachers, and colleagues in Granite School District. May the Lord help us all to carry forward some of Vicki’s love, laughter, and optimism.
Vicki was preceded in death by her parents Floyd and Grace (Hewitt) Woodward, sister Beverly and brother Don, and husbands Larry LeRoy Armstrong and Larry Allen Ricketts. She is survived by children Christine (Ian), Lori (Todd), Larry (Elyse), Andrew (Rebecca), Jess (Desire), and Misty (Bart), 19 grandchildren, and 7 great grandchildren.
A viewing for friends and family will be held on Sunday, January 16, from 6:30-8:00 p.m. at the LDS Chapel on 8600 South 1500 East in Sandy, Utah. The funeral service will be held on Monday, January 17, at 11:00 a.m. at the same venue, followed immediately by a graveside service and interment at the Memorial Mountain View Mortuary in Cottonwood Heights. The funeral service will be available on Zoom at https://youtu.be/paZnVp-Ciwk
Service Information
Viewing January 16, 2022 at 6:30-8:00 pm
8600 South 1500 East in Sandy, Utah





Viewing January 17, 2022 at 9:30 am
8600 South 1500 East in Sandy, Utah





Funeral Service
January 17, 2022 at 11:00 am
8600 South 1500 East in Sandy, Utah