In Rick Rickborn’s spare time, he could generally be found in one of two places: the kitchen or the backyard.
He loved gardening and transformed his Chamblee back yard into a colorful assortment of "rooms," said Beth Hardage, a daughter from Alpharetta.
"That's what he called the areas he created in their yard, rooms," she said. "And it still looks great out there, even though he hasn't been able to garden like he used to, because he put down such a great foundation."
And after he retired from a career in with the Internal Revenue Service, he spent a considerable amount of time in the kitchen.
“Our mother still did most of the everyday cooking, but he did the baking,” said Reed Rickborn, a son from Greenwood, S.C. “And you could tell it was something he really enjoyed.”
Dorsett Roe Rickborn, known as Rick by most, of Chamblee, died Friday at home of natural causes. He was 88.
His body will be cremated and a memorial service has been planned for 1 p.m.Tuesday at Oak Grove Methodist Church, Decatur. H.M. Patterson and Son, Oglethorpe Hill Chapel, is in charge of arrangements.
If there was a celebration that called for a cake in the Rickborn family, it was understood that Rick Rickborn would provide it.
And there was no question that it would be one of the best cakes he’d ever made, until he baked the next one.
“Well if you brought a store-bough cake or one from a bakery, it almost offended him,” Mr. Rickborn said of his father. “He always wanted to bake the cake.”
And just when family members thought his brownies couldn’t get any better, he’d bake up another batch that topped the first.
“He liked to tinker with recipes,” Mrs. Hardage said. “And if he got a recipe from a magazine and it didn’t come out right for him, he’d contact the magazine and find out what went wrong.”
Mr. Rickborn, an Army veteran, hadn’t always been a baker, his son said. Growing up on a farm in Badham, S.C., and the youngest of seven children, Mr. Rickborn’s parents grew and raised most of the food the family ate. Sweets were a treat for him and he never passed up an opportunity to enjoy a sugary snack.
Mr. Rickborn started baking things he liked to eat, his children said. And chocolate was often involved in his creations.
“He did a great chocolate pound cake with chocolate icing,” his son said.
Mr. Rickborn seemed to get as much joy from baking as he did gardening, his family said. He’d been do it as long as his daughter could remember. When the family moved from Columbia S.C. to Atlanta, he dug up the camellias that were in his yard.
“We were moving into an apartment in Atlanta so he planted them at his mother’s house,” Mrs. Hardage said. “When we moved into the house a year later, he went and got them and replanted them. He didn’t think they were going to make it, but they did. He had a super green thumb.”
The family moved to Atlanta in 1961 so Mr. Rickborn could take a job at a new IRS processing center in Chamblee. He’d started working for the Service in the 50s, after he graduated from the University of South Carolina, with a double major in English and French. He retired in 1983 and spent the rest of his years enjoying the company of his family.
“He didn’t really spend a lot of time talking about the days when he was working,” his son said. “He might have gone to a reunion event or two, but he mostly enjoyed the life he had before him, not looking back.”
In addition to his son and daughter, Mr. Rickborn is survived by his wife of 62 years, Virginia Hutto Rickborn of Chamblee; another daughter, Stacy Knight of Suwanee; an additional son, Chris Rickborn of Coral Gables, Fla.; and three grandchildren.
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