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Robert Sidney (born Robert Sidney "Sid" Rippey) was the fourth of eight children born to Daniel Baxter Rippey (1855-1919) and Nancy Catherine Spencer (1848-1931). He was born near the community of Lambsburg in southern Carroll Co., Va., just west of present-day I-77 and just north of the North Carolina state line.
In early 1900, at the age of 18, Sid had the misfortune of being accused of burning a barn -- shades of William Faulkner -- in a crime committed by his first cousin on the Spencer side, Lacy Jake "Lace" Norman (1881-1946), son of Sid's mother's sister, Christina....
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Robert Sidney (born Robert Sidney "Sid" Rippey) was the fourth of eight children born to Daniel Baxter Rippey (1855-1919) and Nancy Catherine Spencer (1848-1931). He was born near the community of Lambsburg in southern Carroll Co., Va., just west of present-day I-77 and just north of the North Carolina state line.
In early 1900, at the age of 18, Sid had the misfortune of being accused of burning a barn -- shades of William Faulkner -- in a crime committed by his first cousin on the Spencer side, Lacy Jake "Lace" Norman (1881-1946), son of Sid's mother's sister, Christina. Lace Norman was about 3 months older than Sid.
When the 1900 Federal Census was taken, on 02 Jun 1900, Sid had been imprisoned in the county jail, Wythesville, Va., for 4 months. He was 19 years old, a prisoner, with his "outside" occupation listed as farm laborer. Family lore indicates that Sid's brother, James Benjamin Rippey, worked in the mines (supported by the 1900 Census, which placed him boarding as an iron ore miner with the Stoots family in Wythe County), to earn money for Sid's release. Eventually, Sid was bailed out, and James B. Rippey returned to Carroll Co., marrying his half first cousin, Nancy Ellen Surratt, in 1905.
(In a bizarre twist, Nancy E. Surratt's brother, William Isom "Billy" Surratt, Jr., was hauled into the county jail at Wytheville about May 1900 on charges of murder. Both Sid Rippey and Billy Surratt, who were half first cousins on the Rippey side, were incarcerated when the Census was taken on 02 Jun 1900. Surratt, a farmer by trade, had slashed (the throat of) and killed James Henry Turner (1870-1900), husband of James and Sid Rippey's sister, Sophia Elizabeth "Betty" Rippey, in a moonshine dispute, after being shot (or shot at) by Turner. One's hogs had gotten into the other's corn mash. Family stories indicate that Surratt was eventually acquitted for the crime.)
From the time of Sid's release from prison, his story becomes murky. What is known is that he broke bond, nearly costing the Rippey family their log cabin and property -- which had been put up as collateral. Sid's broken-bond case dragged on into 1905, when James B. Rippey paid nearly $500 to the county sheriff to "buy back" the Lambsburg home and property so that the family could keep a roof over their heads. In the 1910 Census, Nancy C. Spencer Rippey listed five living children, which would have included Sid, along with brother James and sisters Betty, Tena, and Rosa.
After years on the lam, Sid surfaced in the 1910s in northern Iowa, where he farmed -- first in Kossuth Co. and later in Palo Alto Co. By then, he had adopted the name -- Robert Sidney -- that he would use for the rest of his life. On 23 Feb 1914 in Faribault Co. in southern Minnesota, 32-year-old Robert Sidney married 15-year-old Martha "Rosetta" Knary, an Iowa-born daughter of Swiss immigrants. Robert and Rosetta (Knary) Sidney had two daughters, Marjorie and Maxine. Tragically, Rosetta died 13 Nov 1918, at the age of 20. Two months before Rosetta's untimely death, Robert Sidney filed and signed his WWI Draft Registration card, which listed his birth date as 03 May 1881. He was categorized as tall and slender, with blue eyes and brown hair.
By 1920, Robert Sidney had hired Lulu (Frazee) Lightfoot as a housekeeper while he continued to farm in Kossuth Co. On 29 Mar 1920, weeks after the 1920 Census was taken, Robert -- then 38 years old -- married 18-year-old neighbor Pearl Chloe Dewey. Robert and Pearl had two children, Lois Katherine Sidney (b. 1921 in Iowa) and Louis Eugene Sidney (b. 1922 in Michigan). For some reason, the marriage fell apart; Louis was born in Michigan, where her parents lived, rather than Iowa. By 1924, Pearl had moved to the Los Angeles area, where on 06 Jun 1924 she married Harvey Edward Guess -- a marriage that also fell apart but produced Harvey Guess, Jr., b. 1925.
In 1925, the Iowa State Census listed Robert Sidney as having been born in North Carolina (his father was born there) and having moved to Iowa 15 years earlier, around 1910. Tellingly, the 1925 Census listed Robert Sidney's parents as Daniel Sidney and Nancy Spencer -- very close to the truth: Daniel Rippey and Nancy Spencer.
By the late 1920s, Robert Sidney's health was in decline. At age 47, he died on 07 Apr 1929, in Palo Alto Co., Iowa, of aortic heart problems, with nephritis listed as a complication. Ironically, Robert Sidney's father and paternal grandfather (Daniel Rippey and John Wesley Rippey, respectively) also died of kidney disease. At the time of Robert Sidney's death, his eldest daughters were 13 and 12 -- and they were raised to adulthood by their maternal grandparents. And his two younger children were with their mother in southern California.
It is possible that Sidney Robert "Sid" Rippey / Robert Sidney is buried next to his first wife in an unmarked grave. More research may determine whether or not this is true. |
