A special thank you to all those who have participated in our “I Remember Rippey” series. Your remembrances have allowed readers to share in our town’s history, activities, sports, school, church, and daily life covering 150 years.
We will continue posting online here, using “I Remember Rippey” remembrances received prior to April 30, 2020. If you would like to read more Rippey history, you may also click on the History tab of the Rippey Library website: https://www.rippey.lib.ia.us .
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More Thoughts While Drinking Morning Coffee And Remembering…. by Julene Ann Rittgers Boza
Mrs. Edith Crandell: Church Youth Group would go caroling in the evenings at Christmas time and we would never miss Mrs. Crandell’s home. You could smell her homemade cookies as you approached her porch. She always invited us into her kitchen for cookies and more songs. Cinnamon, ginger, chocolate – close your eyes and just go back to her kitchen.
Sandra Thornburgh and I have been friends since Kindergarten. Our dads drove school buses and operated the two restaurants/cafes in Rippey. Her family’s home was above their cafe on Main Street and I lived in the old Hagerman home on Main Street. In the winter, Sandra and I would build very large snowmen/women in the vacant area of my home next to the highway – across the highway from the Ross Hatfield gas station and the railroad tracks.
In the summer months, Sandra and I would ride the train to Perry to see the movie. One of our parents would pick us up after the movie and drive back to Rippey.
We used to walk south down the railroad tracks to the bridge and just talk about teenage stuff. We walked many, many times but only once got caught by an oncoming northbound train. We scurried off the bridge in time, but what a surprise.
Special occasions at school with big potluck lunches and food items donated by parents were fun. I always volunteered my mother to bake her famous chocolate cake and make her great potato salad. One time, Sandra and I took mother’s two delicious items to school but could not find them when we went through the food line. Later, we found them, untouched, because they had been missed by the servers. We took them back to my home and ate large portions of chocolate cake and potato salad. Mother was disappointed because she had spent time and money in preparation, but she also knew the food would be enjoyed by her family. (I wonder if Sandra remembers this.)
There used to be band concerts in the town square. Some folks remember a wooden band stand which would be wheeled into the town square for the band members to sit on – I can’t recall if I ever sat on this band stand – darn memory. I played clarinet and later bass clarinet in the band and Sandra played tenor sax. The two cafes (Rittgers and Thornburgh) took turns providing a free treat to the band members after the concerts.
Later in our teenage years, we had just begun dating two boys from Perry. Sandra wanted to switch dates and I liked both boys, so did not matter to me. Next date, Sandra got in the front seat and I got in the back seat with our “new” dates. The boys laughed and all was o.k. Eventually, Sandra married her new date, Larry Huitt. The nice young man who had been my new date was killed in the Korean (I think) war.
I hope Larry and Sandra Huitt in Arizona read this part of my memory.
Jay and Winnie States Drug Store where I spent lots of time buying comic books and getting black and white film developed. Their drug store and Dad’s restaurant shared a common wall.
Art Todd loved my mother’s lemon pie. When I was a freshman (I think), Mrs. Frame was my Home Econ teacher. She helped all us girls plan an “educational“ trip, which she would chaperone, and she encouraged us to hold fund raisers to pay for this trip. One popular fund raiser was to hold Bake Sales at Roy Rains grocery store.
Girls baked and mothers baked – of course, I volunteered my mother to bake lemon pies. Art Todd was always there early and bought mother’s lemon pie still warm from the oven. He was a regular customer.
Lulu Davis won a raffle, which was another fund raiser for our “educational” trip. We sold tickets and the winning ticket would get their car washed, polished, and detailed. Lulu lived just south of the Burke garage; she had a very old black car which had never been washed and the black paint had oxidized. It was in bad shape. Guess who won the raffle?? Yes, Lulu Davis! It took all of us girls all day to do her car but what a difference. Folks came from miles around just to admire Lulu’s car. This was the last and only fund-raising car washing raffle we did.
And regarding the “Educational Trip”: We went to Denver and Rocky Mountain Park, chaperoned by Mrs. Frame, on a Greyhound bus, and thought it was great fun. “The Times, they are a’changing. . .”
Hobos on the Perry Highway. When I was very young, my family lived on the Wesley Rittgers farm two miles south of town just off the Perry Highway (moved there when I was maybe 2, 1941-43). My dad was running the Home Café restaurant in town which left my mother and me alone a lot. Hobos on the highway would cut across the field and come to our home asking for food. Mother was always very afraid when they came. She would tell them her husband ran the Home Café in town and if they would go there, Wes would feed them. And Wes always did, plus usually let them sleep in the jail cell which was in the Fire Station building just north of the First National Bank.
I remember when Dad’s restaurant burned. It was at night. At that time, we had left the farm and had built a home where Myron and Maralynn Rinker live now. Mother, little sister Marna, and I stood at the kitchen sink facing north watching the flames in the sky. We were two blocks south of the fire. The ceilings in the restaurant were a metal material which held the heat in. Dad had a tv set in the restaurant which melted. I had always thought dad owned the restaurant, but he did not. He made a trip to Nebraska to talk to the owner about rebuilding. When the restaurant was rebuilt, there was a pool hall in the back half of the building. Marna and I do not know who actually owned the restaurant, or when it sold and who purchased it. If anybody knows these answers, I would love to hear from you.
Grape Jelly. When we lived in the Hagerman home on Main Street, there was an open car port with grape vines all over it. One year mother decided to make grape jelly. Bless her heart, it was such a job. Seeds and skins, etc; finally, boiling the juice and sugar which never, never thickened. Now that I have made jams and jellies, there is a product call Sure Jell which would have made the grape jelly thicken. Mother never tried to make grape anything after that experience.
I remember the old schoolhouse building near the highway. The school buses were parked in the basement. When winter weather came, my dad would be up early starting all the buses. My dad’s Aunt Stellie Hunt Steward went to school in that building. My sister remembers her telling how she rode her horse to and from school.
Bob Ethel, school bus driver. When I began Kindergarten, I lived on the Rittgers farm. I did not want to go to school and cried every morning; daddy Wes carried me to the bus while my mother cried. The solution was my bus driver; he let me sit in the seat right behind him. When we got to railroad tracks, I was the one who got off the bus to check for trains and, if no trains, waved the bus across the tracks. Bob Ethel was my bus driver. I told my mother he had rusty teeth, a comment my mother enjoyed.
Charlie Wishman, School Custodian. I remember Charlie pushing us very young kids on his large wide mop as he cleaned the wide hallway on the first floor in the Rippey School building. We would stand on the mop holding onto the handle, as Charlie pushed the mop down the long hallway.
My younger sister, Marna Kay Rittgers Parker. Sometime after 1957, the school system changed; Rippey and Grand Junction became East Greene and my sister (who lived in Rippey) rode the bus to Grand Junction for classes. Two towns who had been rivals in sports for umpteen years now were supposed to form teams. She was a very good basketball player; the team would practice and play games in East Greene; sometimes, they would practice in the large new gym at the Rippey School (the one which was being built when I graduated high school in 1957). Marna told me when she was a Junior (1963, the year Kennedy was assassinated), if the East Greene Girls Basketball Team could have won just one more game, they would have been in the “Sweet 16 Tournamen.t. When both of us played basketball, girl teams played half-court; today, they play full court just like the boys. This is a Wonderment!
One more memory and I will stop for this time. Part of the top floor of the Rippey School building was the assembly for high schoolers; we were seated alphabetically by grade. For four years I sat between Philip Roberts and Ronnie Riley; i.e. Riley, Rittgers, Roberts. And for four years, those two male classmates smelled sooo good; I love Old Spice to this day and every time I smell it, I close my eyes and just go back . . . .