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 collecting your stories through April 30. Phyllis McElheney Lepke is serving as our volunteer coordinator and stories may be sent to her at Rippey150@gmail.com.
There are many more wonderful articles to enjoy if you click on this link to reach the Rippey Library website: https://www.rippey.lib.ia.us . Then from the home page, click on Rippey History/Genealogy and you’ll be taken to a wealth of articles and news clippings, many provided by Rippey historian Jean Borgeson. Jean is a tireless researcher and great story teller, so you can continue to read about Rippey into the future.
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Halloween by Mary Fry Liebich
The little kids would do their trick or treat thing. Then we would go up to Main Street to see what the bigger boys were up to. Rol (pronounced Raul) – Roland Riley, the town marshal, would rope off Main Street. The older boys would bring all sorts of stuff and dump it on Main Street. Then the adults as well as the kids would come to see what “decorated” Main Street. At a certain point they would have to put it all back where it came from.
I remember an outhouse sitting at the top of the hill – in the street south of the telephone office. And an old bathtub and whatever else they’d been mentally collecting until Halloween came.