Caring and faithful people have always been a prominent asset to Ripley & Fletcher. In 1914, Bert Cole and Ralph Tracey Pierce came into the Ripley & Fletcher family.
Now, another faithful associate of Perley Ripley enters the story. For five years, Irving Barrows was the youngest treasurer of a bank in the State of Maine and New England. In 1915, Irving took a leave of absence from the Paris Trust Company because he was not feeling well and needed to improve his health. He bought a pair of oxen that had just won a ribbon at the Lewiston State Fair, and Irving worked his oxen in the woods all winter for his father, Oscar Barrows. The next spring, Irving helped his father build many houses in South Paris. One of the houses is 13 Barrows Street, which was the house made especially for Irving. He took his bride, Ada Turner, there in 1915.
Perley Ripley was President of the locally-owned Paris Trust Company of which Irving was the Treasurer again after his leave of absence.
In 1935, Mr. Ripley asked Irving how much longer he intended to work at the bank. Irving's reply was "Until you take me out." Perley offered Irving the management of the oil burner business at Ripley & Fletcher. Actually, it was a subtle way of getting Irving involved in learning the whole Ripley & Fletcher Company business. Irving took the job.
In 1936, Ken Bagley from South Portland came to work for Mr. Ripley at Ripley Motors, now located on Forest Avenue in Portland. When Ripley Motors was sold in 1938, Ken was sent to the Bridgton store as assistant to James McNutt.
Mr. McNutt's real livelihood was lumbering. It seems that Mr. McNutt was using Perley's dealer plates on his lumber trucks, which did not exactly please Mr. Ripley after he found out about it. It became Irving Barrow's responsibility to inform Mr. McNutt that Mr. Ripley wanted to make some changes - namely to let McNutt go. Ken became General Manager, but World War II was imminent. At the end of the year in 1941, Ken and his wife, Marion, went home to South Portland. Ken worked in the shipyard at South Portland until September, 1944.
In 1942, Mr. Ripley closed the Bridgton store and sold the building to the town of Bridgton.
In 1944, Ken Bagley came to the Ripley & Fletcher store in South Paris as Service Manager. Hal Fletcher was Parts Manager and Howard McAlister was Sales Manager.
Iona Chapman and Marion Bagley worked in the office. Marion told this story: "Mr. Ripley was in the habit of stepping along to the cash drawer and removing as much money as he needed for his current activity - golfing, betting on the horses, whatever. This certainly hampered us girls from cashing up on the button at the end of the day. One day, Iona asked Mr. Ripley if he would just as soon write down the amount of money he removed from the cash register. A dumbfounded expression came over Perley's face. It had never occurred to him that he was fouling up our bookkeeping."
On August 13th, 1945, Perley Ripley died in the hospital from heart complications which had hospitalized him for several weeks.
I'll pick the story up from here next time. Thanks for reading.
Don
