Helen Barbara “Bobbie” Trippy, 94

Helen Barbara “Bobbie” Trippy danced her way into heaven on Thursday evening, July 7, 2016, held by her son John, in the beautiful home she loved.

Bobbie grew up in Van Wert, Ohio by the railroad tracks. Her family knew what it meant to be frugal, but she never wanted for anything, as her mother and father showered her with endless love and affection. She shared those priceless gifts from her parents with everyone she met during her 94 years on this earth.

Despite her mother’s protests, Bobbie loved to attend dances, which is where she was swept off her feet one evening by her future husband, Richard “Dick” Trippy. Bobbie’s intelligent humor and spunk for life couldn’t be bound, and she and Dick would even dance with rollerskates! Dick asked Bobbie to marry him after he returned home on leave from the army, and saw her on a date with someone else. Bobbie was never a woman to simply stay at home and let life slip by unlived!

Some of Bobbie’s fondest memories were of her mother and dad, her doting older sister Margaret, and the year she spent in Roswell, New Mexico, with her young husband and their three-year-old son John, who’s inquisitive nature and boundless energy kept Bobbie busy every second of the day.

Bobbie worked in the financial offices of Mercy Hospital in Champlain-Urbana, Illinois, and later as a secretary at the Aro Corporation in Bryan, Ohio, but Bobbie considered her greatest accomplishment in life to be raising her “little cowboy” John, who became a maxillofacial surgeon and entrepreneur after he “put his little spurs away,” as Bobbie would say.

Bobbie was eternally youthful and independently minded. Her spirit of fun and adventure surrounded her with friends, and brought her to places like Las Vegas even as recently as this past winter — despite needing to rely on a wheelchair and oxygen in the last year of her life.

Bobbie is survived by her son, Dr. John Trippy; her sister, Martha Chilcote; her niece, Barbara Chilcote; and her granddaughter of the heart, Erica Dudley.

We wish Bobbie a safe passage, and are happy that she has been reunited with those family and friends who passed before her. We also send prayers to her son John, and to all those who depended on her love. Bobbie’s smile remains in our hearts forever!

Visitation will be in Bobbie’s home at 401 S John Street in Bryan, Ohio, on Saturday, July 9 from 6-8 pm, and on Sunday, July 10, from 2-3 pm. A graveside committal service will be held that Sunday, July 10, at 3:15 pm in Brown Cemetery on State Route 34 in Bryan, Ohio. Funeral services have been entrusted to Krill Funeral Service in Bryan.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the William’s County Humane Society.

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