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.
All Aboard! Trip From Rippey To Grand Junction In 1953 by Nancy Bardole Hanaman
Nancy Bardole Hanaman shared this story reminding us that there was a train depot in Rippey. Today when many students take trips abroad, isn’t it wonderful to remember the excitement of a simple train ride “back then.”
Miss Maxine Johnson and Miss Evelyn Wilson gathered the excited, chattering students in Kindergarten and First Grade for the short trip to the Rippey Depot. They were embarking on a field trip to Grand Junction in the spring of 1953. For most of the children this was their first train ride and they were impatient and ready to go. Among the eager students were Carol Norgren, Phyllis McElheney, Donald Bardole, Stephen Young, Joyce Bauer, Janis McElheney, Kindergarten; Judy McElheney, Susan Culley, Fred Grow, Marna Rittgers, Dennis Nelson, Dale Robson, Bob Scharingson, Janis Kenan, Jim Odin, Janice Woods, Nancy Bardole, First Grade.
We soon departed from our train journey at the depot in Grand Junction. We ate our lunch and then walked to the movie theater. Carol Norgren John recalled that we watched a Francis the Talking Mule movie starring Donald O’Connor with the young viewers most impressed with the mule. After the movie, the weary children and teachers journeyed back to Rippey, by school bus, a spring field trip to be remembered for many years.