One of Loomis’ well-known citizens has died. Ann Rippey passed away Jan. 23 in Carmichael at the age of 93.

Adelina “Ann” Lenzi was born to Tommaso and Cisera Lenzi on June 2, 1916 in Roseville. She came to Loomis in 1933, when she married Edmund Bennett Rippey. “Ed’ Rippey died in 1982.

In 2006, Mrs. Rippey was surprised with a 90th birthday celebration. Family, friends, neighbors and acquaintances filled Veterans Memorial Hall.

“There’s not a stranger in the room,” Mrs. Rippey said at the time.

There were few “strangers” to Mrs. Rippey throughout the community.

Like many Loomis Basin residents, Rippey worked at the fruit packing sheds. As a floor lady at the Loomis Fruit Growers Association’s High Hand shed, Mrs. Rippey was in charge of supervising packers.

She moved down the street to help out at Main Drug Store in the mid-1960s and was a familiar face behind the counter there until January 30, 1997.

Main Drug pharmacist and owner Gordon Takemoto said anyone who worked at the fruit shed worked hard.

“Ann brought that work ethic with her to the store,” he remembered. “She was friendly to customers and everybody liked her.”

She also got along well with all the part-time student help in the store, Takemoto said.

For much of the time she worked at Main Drug, Rippey also organized regular bus trips to Reno to benefit the Loomis Library, the Loomis Fire District, and organizations such as the Shriners Hospital, American Cancer Society and Soroptimists.

While Rippey could at times easily fill two buses with gamblers, her tour-guide days ended with the opening of casinos in Northern California.

Alice Barnes, of Loomis, said after retirement her mother continued to garden. “She had a real green thumb, everything would grow for her.”

She had a vegetable garden and two persimmon trees and always gave vegetables and fruit to friends. She was especially fond of her roses.

Her mother, said Barnes, was a big 49er fan and went to many games. She found time for sports in her younger days, too.

“Way back, when my father was alive and had a boat shop, they would go water skiing,” Barnes said.

She also had many Japanese friends, Barnes said, and liked to make Chinese and Japanese food.

She was a good baker, too. One of her specialties was French apple pie, a dessert she often took to Main Drug to share with others.

Barnes said her mother was able to live in her Loomis home until mid-2008, when she moved to Lincoln and was in a skilled nursing facility in Carmichael when she died.

Mrs. Rippey is also survived by another daughter, Ann Lee Brewer Acevedo, son-in-law, Wesley Barnes; sister and brother-in-law, Anita and Warren Hunt; brothers, Bob Lenzi and Deno Lenzi; and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, cousins, nieces and nephews.

Graveside services for Mrs. Rippey will be held at 1 p.m. Friday, Feb. 5, at the Newcastle Cemetery. At 1 p.m. Saturday, a celebration of life will take place at the Penrhyn Masonic Hall in Penryn.