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For nearly a century, Virginia Ripberger lived to the fullest

 
Virginia Ripberger was two months shy of turning 100.
Virginia Ripberger was two months shy of turning 100.
Published March 14, 2015

REDINGTON SHORES — Every afternoon in the home she occupied for nearly 50 years, Virginia Ripberger spread out chips and crackers, napkins and plates.

Four p.m. was cocktail hour.

She served neighbors and relatives, sometimes sharing her bourbon and ginger ale with a parakeet that liked to perch on the rim of her glass.

Mrs. Ripberger shared her dog with a girlfriend who needed companionship and ferried neighbors to their doctor's appointments. If she got stuck on the Times crossword puzzle or Cryptoquote, she called a friend.

More often, they called her.

Mrs. Ripberger died March 1 under hospice care. She was 99.

Her late husband, a retired federal agent, often told her she would not last a year without him, Mrs. Ripberger's family said.

He died in 1990. In May, she would have turned 100.

Born Virginia Baker in 1915 in Chicago, she grew up in the Cleveland area. Photo albums reveal the passage of time. In one black-and-white snapshot, Mrs. Ripberger smiles out the window from the back seat of a Model A automobile. In another, she is all grown up, holding a small dog and looking like a 1940s catalog model.

In between, she passed up a chance at college for a government job to help support three younger siblings. At 21, she married nightclub pianist George Hutchinson, who died 11 years later after a botched surgery.

"I would say that was one of the lowest moments of her life," said Barbara Clemenson, 59, a niece. In the early 1950s, she married Raymond "Rip" Ripberger, a federal drug agent who went on to become the chief of the Ohio Liquor Enforcement Bureau. Mrs. Ripberger became stepmother to two of his children from a previous marriage.

Rip Ripberger retired from that job in 1959, and the couple moved to Redington Shores. His subsequent work with the federal government took the family to Guam for four years. In 1962, the family crouched behind a refrigerator with two dogs as Typhoon Karen slung 185-mph winds onto the island, the most severe storm in its history.

Back in Redington Shores, she joined a bowling league and became a member of the Friends of the Gulf Beaches Library. She read so much, she sometimes forgot whether she had read a book before, especially in later years.

"She would pick out a book and say, 'Did I read this already?' " her niece said. A library staffer suggested she leave a small check mark on the last page of all finished books. Mrs. Ripberger thought that was a wonderful idea.

She continued to drive into her mid 90s, then gave it up.

"I'd take her to the doctor's office," said Jean Seljan, 69, another niece. "I'd say, 'Jinny, don't open the door until I can come around.' And by the time I came around, she had the door open and her feet on the ground.

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"I'd say, 'You're stubborn,' " Seljan said. "And she'd say, 'I'm a Taurus.' "

"She was just very strong-willed," Seljan said. "And that probably helped her."

She moved from Redington Shores to North Redington Beach, then to an assisted living community in Seminole. Last May, her family helped celebrate Mrs. Ripberger's 99th birthday.

She enjoyed the gifts of chocolates that came her way, especially the ones with peanut clusters. Many of the chocolates came with cream centers, her niece said.

"She said, 'Why does everybody think that just because I'm older, I can only eat creams? I've got my own teeth!' "

After a heart attack in October, Mrs. Ripberger's health declined. Her family visited her at Freedom Square, where she was under hospice care.

Her nieces talked to her the day before she died. Mrs. Ripberger was slipping, but managed to say that she loved them all.

In jest, someone asked Mrs. Ripberger if she would like a margarita. That produced a smile.

Contact Andrew Meacham at ameacham@tampabay.com or (727) 892-2248. Follow @torch437.