What Do You Remember About Rippey?
The Rippey, Iowa, Sesquicentennial will be held on Saturday, August 1, 2020. If you have personal remembrances of Rippey, you are invited and encouraged to share those memorable stories. Just send your remembrance via email and we’ll get it posted on the Rippey News Web site, as well as on Facebook sites of the Friends of Rippey and the Rippey Sesquicentennial. You write down the anecdote or story–a page or two–and we’ll do the rest. Phyllis McElheney Lepke is serving as our volunteer coordinator and stories may be sent to her at Rippey150@gmail.com.
Halloween Memories by Ellen Johnston
Fall work for farmers was often still in progress, so Grandma Lila would come to pass out treats, while my
mom, Janice Johnston, would take my brother and me out trick or treating around the Rippey neighborhood. Dressed in costumes, my most memorable outfit was a soapbox topped with balloon bubbles. Some notable houses we stopped at include the man with the cherry tree who passed out
turnips as treats. Maxine Johnson passed out full-sized candy bars. Walt and Nadine Anderson gave us individual treat bags. Somebody passed out red popcorn balls, but I can’t recall who, while a man down at
the senior home would give each visitor a quarter. One year it snowed, so we drove as far as Harvey and Joyce Rice’s house. Decorations were seen on homes around town–corn husks, and pumpkins in the
yard, as well as orange garbage bags filled with leaves. The Rippey Methodist Church cleaned pumpkins, and one year we remember members wore the empty shells as masks.
Photo: This knight in shining armor is Harrison Johnson in 2016.
