Margaret E. Holden Rippey
1898 - 1961
Margaret Holden graduated from Walla Walla College with a music diploma in 1914 and a bachelor's degree in music in 1916. After spending a year at Union College, she returned to teach organ in 1917. She also served as director of the music area in the 1919-20 school year. At the end of that year, Holden told the college she was not interested in continuing and although both the board chairman and president tried to dissuade her, she left at the end of that year.
In 1922, she married Edward E. Rippey, a physician, in Portland, Oregon. She became a well-known organist in Seventh-day Adventist circles in the Northwest and maintained a close relationship with WWC. When the college installed its first professionally made pipe organ, a two-manual nine-rank Reuter in 1929, Rippey played the dedicatory recital. Eleven years later, when another Reuter pipe organ was installed on the campus, she again played the inaugural recital.
Rippey was a popular and successful keyboard performer and teacher in the Portland area. One of her students, Stanley Walker, became a teacher and organist at WWC in 1935 and, in 1945, became chair of the department, a position he held until 1959. She was a charter member of the Portland Sunnyside Church and served as its organist until a short time before her death.
ds/2005