F. Martin Ripley Jr. laughed heartily during, and in between, stories about his father.
There was the time, two or three years ago, when he went to the dining hall at the retirement home, without his pants.
“They took his dinner to him after that,” he laughed.
There was the time, back in the 60s, when they had to chase a group of their pet quail out of a neighbor’s tree and back into their yard.
“They could be hard to round up,” he chuckled.
Then for a moment, the laughing stopped and his tone changed.
“We had good times,” said Mr. Ripley, who lives in Decatur. “He was a good man.”
Francis Martin “Rip” Ripley, of Decatur, died Tuesday while at Odyssey Hospice from an unknown cause, his son said. He was 94. A memorial service will be held today at 11 a.m. in the chapel of the Decatur Presbyterian Church, 205 Sycamore Street, Decatur. A. S. Turner and Sons is in charge of arrangements.
“I think he was just worn out,” Mr. Ripley said of his father’s death. “He lived a good long life.”
Mr. Ripley said his father’s latter years were peppered with moments that turned funny. His early years, however, were filled with purposefully fun moments with family and friends.
“I remember the time we went fishing and he caught the big one, a 8- or 10-pound bass,” said his younger son James “Jim” Ripley, of Alpharetta. “This was before plastic worms and such. This was us just floating a minnow out there.”
The elder Ripley believed in hard work and spending time outdoors, his sons said. Of the 36 years he worked at Southern Bell as a field engineer, Mr. Ripley spent most, if not all of it, outside relocating telephone lines. He spent even more time outdoors when he came home as he raised more than 100 quail over 20 years, in the family’s back yard.
“He’d be outside building pens for the quail,” the older son, Martin Ripley, said. “And he seemed to really enjoy that.”
And after he retired from the phone company, Mr. Ripley took his handy skills to Mission Haven, a place for Presbyterian missionaries to rest between trips.
“He built shipping crates for them,” Mr. Ripley said. “The missionaries would put their belongings and supplies in the crates and dad would take them to air cargo at the airport and drop them off.”
The work kept him busy as he enjoyed retirement, his sons said. He also spent time at the Clothes Closet, on the campus of Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur. Mr. Ripley spent approximately 10 years volunteering his services to the Presbyterian church, his sons said.
Mr. Ripley also enjoyed travel in his early and later years. He was in the Army and served in Japan after World War II. After he retired, he traveled with Friendship Force International, as volunteer and got to make trips overseas.
“In many ways he was a regular man,” said his younger son. “And in many ways he was so much more. He was very special to us.”
Mr. Ripley is also survived by a daughter, Mary Ripley Watson of Tullahoma, Tenn.; seven grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
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