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Ralph Phipps: The Centenarian

Ralph Phipps will be 100 years old on February 28, 2010.

At 99, he still volunteers for Central Texas Medical Center on a weekly basis along side his “girlfriends.”

Since 1980, he’s enjoyed over 10,000 hours in the company of female and male volunteers at the hospital’s information desk.

It all began when his first wife passed away.

“It’s been a God-send for me because the day my wife died, I came here. I walked in here and said, ‘can I be a volunteer?’ ‘Of course, lock the door, don’t let him out,’” he joked.

His first wife died in California while they were packing to move to Texas.

“My wife did not want to come to Texas,” he said. She told Phipps that she wasn’t feeling well and was going to lie down while he talked to the movers. “She laid down on the davenport and never woke up.”

Phipps moved to San Marcos to be closer to his daughter, who lives in Austin, and he settled in at Stone Brook Senior Community.

“Across the table from the table that I usually sat at was a single lady and after two years, I noticed her,” he said. “We had to get married.”

They shared an interest in taking a paddle boat trip down the Mississippi River and decided to go together.

“So we made a reservation and got ready and - wait a minute, wait a minute. We can’t go. Our kids will say we’re shacking up,” said Phipps. “So we came back here and stood up there and Mervin married us. And then, two days later we went on the boat trip. Legally.”

Phipps was born in 1910 in Rochester, New York, and remembers life a lot differently most.

“Dad had a Model T Ford and he was about the only one in the small town we lived in that had a car,” he said. “Sunday afternoon, dad would take us for a ride on the state road. Three miles up at the end of the state road and back, that’s as far as the state road went. That was the end of the highway.”

After he finished school, Phipps owned a vending machine business. Then he went to war as a Seabee and sold his business when he returned home. He worked for the vending machine manufacturing company for 20 years and traveled all over the United States.

He has four great grandchildren, but no great great grandchildren.

“Nope. I’m too young for that.”

He attributes his long life to “good liquor and good women.”

“No, actually, I’ve been asked that many times and I don’t know, but of course good genes number one, honestly, and I’ve always taken a nap. I think it’s the built up years of relaxation,” said Phipps.

His family will have a birthday party in February for the centurion.

“Whether I’m here or not, I told them to go ahead and have the party. I’ll be up there watching. You can’t kid me, I’m not gonna miss it,” Phipps laughed.

Ralph Phipp's story was originally published in the San Marcos Daily Record on July 8, 2009.