April 1, 2019
Lions Club – The Rippey Lions Club will hold its regular meeting Thursday, April 4, with a potluck meal at 7 pm. Dale Hanaman is the coordinator and Pastor Paul Burrow will present the program on a recent trip to Cuba.
More on Angus – After reading last week’s articles on Angus, I received this message from 1959 Rippey graduate Lynn Wilson. The article triggered some childhood memories of listening to the stories the “old” guys use to share about Angus. Lynn is a great Rippey supporter and is always interested in the weekly happenings and gave me permission to share.
“Hi Jean,
“Hope you’re doing well. Saw your article on Angus in the Rippey News. Several years ago I read in the News that a guy from Ogden gave a talk on Angus at one of the Greene County Historical Society meetings. I called him, and learned a few tidbits about the town that I didn’t know.
“The reason Angus quickly exploded into a boom town in the 1880’s was because James J. Hill, the St. Paul, MN railroad tycoon, started buying his coal there. He switched suppliers a few years later, and Angus went into a rapid decline (from 7,000 people to almost nothing).
“Many of the houses were moved to surrounding towns, like Rippey. Dad told me the house we lived in across the street from the park (south) was originally two houses from Angus joined together (it still has a strange shape).
“When I was a kid I used to love to listen to the “old” guys like Orrie Stevens, Oscar Fisher, Chet Riley, Doug Garren, etc., talk about their experiences in Angus when they were young. They’d talk a lot about Whiskey Row, with the 16 saloons, and the infamous Burns gang, whom you could order just about anything from (like Sears). They would then steal whatever you wanted, and sell to you for a nominal price. Orrie told Dad he used to buy his suits from the Burns gang.
“I was also told that Angus was the only place in the region where you could buy a steamship ticket to Europe. My great-grandparents, George and Hannah Wilson, both immigrants from England, first met at a minister’s house in Angus, and were married there in 1886. George worked in the Angus mines to save money so he could buy a farm, which he did, just east of Rippey, and they raised eight children there. Hard to imagine today what Angus once was.” ~ Lynn Wilson
Rippey library – A reminder that Greene County Reads, the annual county-wide book discussion, will be held Thursday, April 11. This year’s selection is The Home for Unwanted Girls by Joanna Goodman and the leader will be Jan Scharingson. For the reader’s convenience, discussions will be held at the Churdan public library at 9 am, Rippey public library at 2 pm, and Marchant Memorial Library in Scranton at 7 pm.
The annual book discussions are free and open to the public.
