Newhall resident Nancy Roatcap of Nancy’s Ranch, the former Christmas tree farm off Magic Mountain Parkway in Valencia, died of a stroke on Aug. 30, friends said.
According to Colleen Lee, a longtime friend, Roatcap was 77 years old.
“She was just such a happy presence,” Lee said in a telephone interview. “She served so many people. So many families came to buy their trees from her. And she donated so many trees to community organizations and people in need.”
Signal columnist John Boston said Roatcap, who he’d known since the mid-1950s when the two of them went to Chatsworth Park Elementary School together, was a friend he’d had longer than any other, who’d regularly dine with him and others at Dario’s Mexican Restaurant in Newhall. Boston added that he bought a Christmas tree from Roatcap’s ranch every year for over 30 years.
“It’s simple, yet profound, how many lives she touched, helping others and putting thousands and thousands of Christmas trees into the homes of Santa Clarita families,” Boston wrote in an email. “She was, and is, a good angel — a good Christmas elf if you will — who served in good cheer and ordinariness.”
According to Lee, Nancy Lea Roatcap was born in Burbank on Nov. 29, 1946, to lifelong farmers Thursel and Ralph Roatcap. She was the second of four children.
Lee said Roatcap was very active in the 4-H youth organization growing up, breeding cows and providing the family’s beef for years. She graduated from Fillmore High School in 1964, then studied English and agriculture at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo for two years before moving around a bit in the late 1960s, getting married to Mike Milligan in the mid-1970s and landing work as a preschool teacher and midwife in Canada.
After some time in the great white north, Lee said Roatcap and her husband moved to Arkansas, where they established a tree nursery. They were there for about 14 years, Lee said, adding that Roatcap and her husband would travel to Valencia every Christmas season to work for her family at a tree farm called Windmill Christmas Trees.
In 1985, Lee said Roatcap’s sister and brother-in-law, who were part owners of the tree farm, offered both Roatcap and her husband work. That’s when the couple moved permanently to the Santa Clarita Valley, where Roatcap remained for the rest of her life.
Windmill Christmas Trees would eventually become Nancy’s Ranch.
“Local citizens flocked to the ranch at Halloween to buy pumpkins, to see the witch in the wheelchair and the skeletons, and to go on hayrides,” Lee said. “Christmas was even bigger as people came from far and wide to cut their own trees or purchase precut ones.”
According to Lee, Roatcap was very giving, volunteering much of her time as a docent at Placerita Canyon Nature Center.
“She had a kind and generous heart, giving extra financial support to her workers when they were either in need or wanting to establish their own businesses,” Lee said. “In support of the SCV at large, she was known for hosting races for Assistance League, donating trees to charitable community causes, as well as participating in and donating trees to organizations that supported SCV business.”
Roatcap is survived by two sisters and a brother. According to Lee, a private memorial gathering is set to take place sometime next spring.
