A feisty, brilliant, and often complex marine biologist, Edward Flanders Robb Ricketts was born on May 14, 1897 in Chicago, Illinois. His father was an accountant for an art gallery and his mother was an upper-middle class woman from Boston. The oldest of two children, Ricketts had a younger sister, Frances. At age six his uncle gave him some natural history curios and an old zoology textbook, an act that sealed his fate as a biologist. In high school, Ricketts was an excellent student, taking all of the biology and zoology courses he could.

Quiet and very likeable, he attended the Illinois State Normal University for one year (1915-1916), but his work was only average and, feeling restricted, he left. He traveled to Texas where he found work at a country club in El Paso.

When the United States entered World War I (1917) Ricketts tried several times to enlist but was rejected each time for flat feet. He finally got in the Army, where he served as a clerk in the Medical Corps. After his discharge he entered the University of Chicago (Summer, 1919). However, over a three year period (1919-1922) he attended only seven quarters. He took classes in philosophy, zoology, German and Spanish. His grades were good and he received an "Honorable Mention for Excellence," but he left the university without taking a degree in 1922. Ed Ricketts, marine biologist, would never earn a college degree, but he was deeply influenced by one of his professors, Dr. Warder Clyde Allee (1885-1955), one of America's first ecologists.

In 1923, at age twenty-five, Ricketts traveled to California with one of his college roommates, A. E. Galigher and together they started the Pacific Biological Laboratories in Pacific Grove. The lab supplied slides and preserved specimens for research institutions and schools. Eventually, Ricketts became sole owner and would spend much of his time combing the waters of the Pacific and inland rivers looking for specimens.

Pacific Biological Laboratory moved to 740 Ocean View Avenue in Monterey, California in 1928. In his lab Ricketts pursued his own research on marine life and wrote scientific papers on the evolutionary process.

An outgoing, talkative man, Ricketts loved all kinds of marine life. In dealing with all kinds of people he had the ability to move among fishermen and winos as easily as among scientists and businessmen.

Ricketts, his wife, Anna, and their three children moved several times in the Pacific Grove and Carmel areas. After marital problems developed Ricketts moved into his Monterey lab in 1936. On November 25, 1936, a fire started at the Del Mar Cannery, next door to the lab. The lab and most of it's contents were destroyed. However, his manuscript "Between the Pacific Tides" was saved because it had already been sent to Stanford University for publication. It would be this textbook that would make Ed Ricketts' influence on the next generation of marine biologists and many thousands of ordinary people who wanted to know a litte (or a lot) about the fascinating organisms living along the California coast. PAGE 2