Sand Run's Roscoe Tripp Loves Baseball; Used to Pitch for His Family Team

(This is the 193rd in the Democrat-Enquirer series about our living

pioneers...senior citizens, 80 years of age or over, who have contributed

to our history and heritage).

Roscoe C. Tripp, age 80, who lives on Sand Run in Washington Twp., of

Jackson County near the Vinton County line, has lived in virtually the

same area his entire life.

He now lives on Wellston Rt.1, but was born a mile and a half north of his

present farm on the old Tripp family farm, now owned by Henry Veirs, on

March 19, 1880, the son of Stephen and Mary Jane Tucker Tripp. His mother

was a native of Hocking County, his father, a farmer and carpenter, was a

native of the Sand Run area, and fought in the Civil War, in several battles

in the south. Roscoe also lived in Vinton county for several years, but in

the same neighborhood as he does now.

He is the last of his family of nine brothers and sisters, and as a boy

attended the Tripp school, located just west of the family farm. His early

teachers included T. M. Buskirk, Ab Ray, Wilmer Davis and his brother,

W. O. Tripp. His classmates included Roy and Lena Cox, Joe, Wyoma and Armor

Skinner and others. Tripp school was a big one, with 40 pupils, he recalls.

With his brothers he helped his father on the family farm, and learned the

family trade, carpentry, working for $2 or $3 daily. He also sheared sheep,

cradeled wheat for the same wages.

With his brothers he also started a sawmill, and it was his favorite job.

The Tripp brothers would leave their respective homes on Monday, work out in

the timber living in a shack, and Roscoe was the chief cook, a job he enjoyed

as much as he enjoyed the sawmill trade. They would return to their families

for the weekends.

When he married Alice Davis in 1911 (he was 31 at the time) he left the family

farm and rented one of his own, and in 1916 he purchased his present farm, the

80-acre Dill place, and has owned and operated the farm ever since, a total of

44 years. He remodeled the farm home, which used to be a log cabin, and is now

over 100 years old, but comfortable.

Mr. and Mrs. Tripp had six children, and one, Grace, died when she was 13.

The others include Edith Evans and Velma Crabtree of Chillicothe, Verlie Rich,

Columbus, Jane Countryman, Bainbridge, O., and Willard (Bill) Tripp, Wellston

Rt. 1, living just north of his father. Two of his daughters are nurses. He has

several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Roscoe Tripp is a baseball fan and used to be a famed baseball player. From

1910 to 1930 the Tripp brothers and the Skinner brothers had a baseball team,

with Homer, Bundy, Oliver and Thomas Tripp playing. Roscoe was a pitcher, and

a good one. The Tripp team would play Wellston, Hamden, McArthur, Sheldon and

Shiloh, and once, playing against Dundas, Roscoe pitched and in the ninth

inning stole three bases to bring the Tripp team a 4-2 victory.

He likes the Cincinnati Reds, follows them on the radio, and has been to

Crosley Field to see them play. A nephew, Steve Tripp, of Hamden, carrying

on the family trade of carpenter, is another baseball fan.

Until two years ago he worked hard, keeping up a pace hard for even a

younger man to follow, raised livestock and crops on his 80-acre farm.

But he was taken ill, and submitted to major surgery in Chillicothe hospital,

and since that time his activities have been curtailed. But he still has

seven head of shorthorn beef cattle and a horse, and the day we interviewed

Mr. Tripp, he took delivery on a roan calf from Earl Webb, Hamden livestock

dealer.

He looks forward to attending the annual Richland Twp. Homecoming each

September in the Shiloh Church grove, but was hospitalized a day prior to

last year's affair.

Earl Webb says this of the Tripp family: "They're hard workers, honest, and

dependable, and in my estimation, are pretty fine people."

Rev. Alfred Tripp of McArthur is a cousin of Roscoe Tripp, and he is related

widely to this prominent Vinton county family name.

The old Tripp cemetery is adjacent to the Tripp family farm where Veirs now

lives. Neighbors of Mr. Tripp include Franklin Frazee and Terry Souders whose

adjoining farms are across the road and who helped Mr. Tripp last winter when

they brought a tractor load of feed in for his snowed-in livestock. Another

neighbor is Floyd DeLashmutt, retired Ohio State University professor of

agriculture who at 71 still farms his 147-acre farm with vigor and high

intelligence, and who is a good neighbor to farmers in the area who seek

him out for advice.

"Roscoe Tripp is a good hunter, a fine shot. He uses a rifle, and shoots

what he needs, is not hoggish. He hunts squirrel with a .22 calibre pistol,"

DeLashmutt says.

Of Roscoe's ability as a carpenter and woodworker, DeLashmutt says his

neighbor is a craftsman, not a wood-butcher.

If your neighbors of long standing think well of you, you certainly must

deserve this reputation.