Following two decades of bravely overcoming myriad maladies, Ric Tribble
passed peacefully surrounded by family and seemingly at peace with the
fate brought by his final illness.
Jon Eric “Ric” Tribble was born on August 18, 1943 in Hays, Kansas. He
was the youngest of four children of Katherine and Carl Tribble. Some
eight years younger than his closest sibling, he was the prototypical
fourth child who kept his parents on their toes. Yet he was always the
apple of his mother’s eye, who adored him until her own passing in 1993.
As a child, Ric moved around with his family. His father worked for
pipeline companies in Kansas and Ric spent time in schools in many small
towns. His high school years were divided between the southeastern
Kansas towns of Chanute and Garnett, and he considered these two his
early homes.
Ric was President of his college fraternity at Pittsburg State College
in Pittsburg, Kansas, majoring in economics. He was recruited from
college to a Southwestern Bell management program and, after a ten-week
training, was offered a position as manager of the Dodge City office. A
short stent in this role was all it took for Ric to realize that he did
not aspire to a life in corporate management and that he wanted to have
some semblance of his own lock on destiny, which led him to become a
manufacturers’ representative in the apparel trade.
Also during this time, Ric joined the U.S. Army Reserves and served as a
Second Lieutenant in the 137th Infantry Regiment, earning a
sharpshooter qualification.
In the apparel business, Ric made many friends and visited many
restaurants. His mother, KK as she became known to a legion of
grandchildren, was a critic and connoisseur of all things edible, and
she passed this cursed gift on to her youngest son, as she did to his
older siblings. They all became particular, if not in fact picky. So
as Ric travelled the various towns and occasional cities of the Midwest,
he scouted out good meals and took note of bad ones. He kept a mental
diary of things he loved which would become an important part of his
future.
In 1975, Ric married Mary McCurry in Kansas City. Mary was an apparel
buyer for a department store and the two quickly joined in the business
of apparel sales. The newlyweds first lived together on the Country
Club Plaza in Kansas City before buying a bungalow in Manhattan, Kansas.
The apparel business was a seasonal one, and perhaps it left Ric too
much time to get into trouble, for in 1979 he opened his first
restaurant, Ric’s Café. It was a quiet and hard-to-find place a bit
afield to the campus of Kansas State University, yet it became a place
that is still remembered by people surviving from those distant days.
In Manhattan, Kansas, this was perhaps the first restaurant to feature
steak tartare, escargot, and other continental standards that hadn’t
previously reached the Kansas Prairie.
Everette Ray Call, Editor of the Emporia Gazette, hosted Norman Isaacs
for dinner at the restaurant in 1980 and subsequently wrote in his
regular editorial column, “there is something about the atmosphere at
Ric’s Café that inspires good conversation.” The friends Ric and Mary
made in their days at Ric’s café were vast and long-lasting and, to this
day, are still among visitors to their home in Lancaster. And those
same friends have hosted them in many distant places as well as closer
to home.
Ric’s only son, Max, was born in 1980. In 1998, as a freshman in a
lecture hall of 300 students, Max was asked by his economics professor
during the first roll call if he was “the son of Ric’s Café,” of which
his parents had divested in 1981. Such a place it was that it still held
strong in the memory of Manhattanites then, as it does today. And
throughout Max’s four years as a student at Kansas State, this was a
recurring theme: “Tribble? Ric’s Café?”
In 1986, the apparel business took Ric and his family to Lancaster,
Pennsylvania. In his early days in Lancaster, Ric became involved in
the YMCA through his life-long passion for handball. He competed in the
statewide over-50 championships. During this time, he also volunteered
for Hogares-CREA.
In 1994, Ric and Mary founded Ric’s Breads. While their mainstay
operation at Lancaster’s Central Market is still operating today, they
also had stands at York Central Market and Harrisburg’s West Shore
Market. Ric operated a bakery at 414 N. Pine Street for many years
before opening the bakery on North Queen Street, where Ric’s Bread is
still in business.
In 2004, Ric suffered a heart attack. Though at first it appeared that
he would get by with minimally-invasive procedures and return to a
normal life, his condition rapidly devolved and in April of 2004, Ric
received a heart transplant. He had spent a mere five weeks in the
Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania prior to the transplant, and
only about ten days after, but he always held a reverence for the
institution and the surgeons and medical team who saw him through this
unimaginable phase of life.
In 2005, Ric and Mary sold the bakery and Ric joined Mary in the real
estate business. Ric loved real estate and, even at 62, took to it
naturally. Several years later, with their partner Scott Haverstick,
Ric and Mary bought the Puffer Morris Agency in downtown Lancaster where
Ric served as broker. Together these three “older” Lancastrians
embarked on a new business that kept Ric engaged until the very end of
his life.
In his later years, Ric continued to be engaged in the community,
volunteering for the Literacy Council to help immigrants learn to read
and write in English. He was a co-founder and the first President of
the Lancaster Central Market Trust.
In 2018, with 14 years of transplant-survival under his belt, Ric began
to slow down. After nearly two months of hospitalization, the surgeon
who had placed the new heart into his body a decade and a half before
repaired two leaking valves and performed a bypass surgery. It was
noted as being the first mitral valve repair to a transplanted heart
performed at the University of Pennsylvania. Before long, Ric was spry
again, back at work and back to much of his normal life. He was able to
travel a bit and to spend time with his only grandchild, Dayton
Williams Tribble, who will always remember his Pop Pop as a funny and
kind man who liked to tease him and play fun jokes.
Ric loved to travel and was a student of architecture, history and
cooking during his trips to France, Italy and Spain, but he may have
enjoyed his time in England the most, describing the cuisine in generous
terms. Ric and Mary had a trip planned to France in May of 2020 and,
like the plans of so many, it was interrupted by circumstances beyond
anyone’s control. He made the most of a long and isolating year, still
cooking and baking at home.
Ric is predeceased by his brother Carl Jr. of Summit Point WV, and his
sisters Katherine and Jerri Anne, both of Fort Worth, Texas. He is
survived by his wife, Mary, with whom he celebrated 46 years of marriage
in this past Valentine’s Day, his son, Max Tribble of Lancaster, and
his grandson, Dayton Williams Tribble of Colchester, Vermont, and his
sister-in-law, Patricia of Summit Point, WV.
A remembrance was held at the Lancaster Theological Seminary at 11
am on Friday, June 11. In lieu of flowers, gifts in Ric’s name may be made to Lancaster
Central Market Trust, 23 N. Market St., Lancaster PA 17602 or to
Lancaster Theological Seminary, 555 W. James St., Lancaster, PA 17603.
Please note Ric Tribble Fund on memo line of checks. The Groff-High
Funeral Home, New Holland, Pa., is in charge of arrangements. Online
condolences may be posted at www.groffeckenroth.com.