The youngest child of
Gilbert and Eletha (Harmon) Usher, she was born in Standish on Dec. 5, 1919.
Iva graduated from Hollis High School, Class of 1936, and married Lloyd Tripp, also of Hollis, in September of that year. They resided in Biddeford and Camp Ellis until 1943, when they moved to The Farm on Simpson Road in Saco, where Iva resided for most of her life.
Iva was an avid cook and baker, and the house was frequently filled with the smells of her delicious pies, cakes and cookies. She loved to read recipe books, discovering new recipes to try or imagining how she would “adjust” a recipe to create a new culinary delight.
Although she worked at various jobs, she was primarily a “stay-at-home” mom that included caring for the family livestock and gardens! In the early ’60s, she and Lloyd provided a home to a down-and-out, standardbred racehorse. This was the beginning of a 20-year adventure breeding, training and racing standard-bred horses. Early on Saturday mornings, Iva and Lloyd could be found training horses on the beach at Pine Point, at Gorham or Scarborough Raceways, or at Lonesome Downs in Scarborough.
Seventeen years after Lloyd’s death, she married Alfred (Freddie) Kimball of Dayton. She raised and, under Freddie’s guidance, trained a pair of Durham shorthorn oxen. This began a new adventure showing oxen in “handy” classes at fairs across Maine.
Mrs. Tripp was preceded in death by: her parents; her brother, Fred Usher; five sisters, Dorothy Gammon, Gilberta Ingalls, Gertrude Hodgdon, Minnie Usher and Virgina Bradbury; her husbands, Lloyd Tripp and Alfred Kimball; and a son, Curtis Tripp.
She is survived by: two sons, Terrance Tripp and his wife Gene of Westborough, Massachusetts, and David Tripp and his wife Donna of Saco; a daughter, Jacqueline Littlefield and her husband Roy of Saco; several grandchildren and great-grandchildren; and a great-greatgrandson.
Friends and relatives may call 5-7 p.m. Sunday, May 15, at Dennett, Craig & Pate Funeral Home, 13 Portland Road, Buxton. A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Monday, May 16, at North Saco Congregational Church.
Mrs. Tripp will be buried in a family plot next to her husband at the South Buxton (Tory Hill) Cemetery in Buxton.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made in Iva’s name to: Animal Welfare Society, P.O. Box 43, West Kennebunk, ME 04094; or: North Saco Congregational Church, PO Box 706, Saco, ME 04072.
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