Dr. Trippeer, Former County Health Official, Dies at 84

Dr. Herman A. Trippeer, 84, longtime Walla Wallan and one of the most prominent veterinarians of the Pacific Northwest during his active years, died Thursday morning, July 15, 1965 in a La Grande hospital.

He had been in good health until recent days.  Friends in Walla Walla visited him a couple of weeks ago in Cove where he lived as a youth and where he had returned to live in recent years.  He observed his 84^th birthday on July 6, 1965.

Mrs. Trippeer died in San Francisco on September 27, 1964.  Survivors are a daughter, Mrs. Louis F. (Denise) Vollendorff, San Francisco, and a nephew, Stuart French, Baker.

Dr. Trippeer came to Walla Walla in 1907 and became active in veterinary circles.  He was engaged in private practice until 1933 when he became supervisor of all foods of animal origin for the City-County Health Department.  In 1945 he was appointed dairy and livestock supervisor in the State Department of Agriculture by Governor Mon C. Wallgren.

He was chiefly responsible for the city's adoption of the standard milk ordinance in the '30s when Walla Walla and Portland were the first to have the then stringent regulation concerning the Bang's disease testing of all dairy herds that provided milk to city sources.  It was his duty to persuade dairymen it was to their interest to make the necessary expensive changes in operations.

Dr. Trippeer was born July 6, 1881, in Peru, Indiana.  The family came to Eastern Oregon in his early life.  He took pre-med work at Washington State University completing it then taking a 2-year veterinary medical course at McKillip Veterinary College in Chicago from which he graduated in 1906.  He married Pearl Alexander in Seattle February 25, 1908.

He came to Walla Walla to take the cavalry veterinarian examination at old Fort Walla Walla.  The examination lasted a week and during his spare time he met the late Dr. J. W. Woods who prevailed on him to stay here.  He became a partner in the veterinary firm of Woods & Trippeer.

In 1933 Dr. Trippeer entered public health work.

He served as secretary of the Washington State Veterinary Medical Association in 1912 and as its president in 1923.  He was assistant state veterinarian in 1908-12 and up to 1945 when he took the state position he had been a member of the State Board of Veterinary Examiners 22 years.  At the time of his state appointment in 1945 he was given a 3-month leave of absence by the city and county commissions.

Intensely interested in horses from his earliest days, he was president of the association which re-organized the Southeastern Washington Fair under that name in 1925.  He served as presiding judge for the Southeastern Washington Fair spring race meet here in 1953 and as marshal of the downtown parade for that event.

Dr. Trippeer worked with Howard C. Burgess, then county extension agent, in the problem of tar weed seed in grain and straw that proved fatal for several kinds of livestock.

He was a member of the Masonic Lodge in Cove and of El Katif Shrine in Spokane.  He was in Walla Walla May 22, 1965 for the Arnold Carle Shrine ceremonial.  He was a life member of the Walla Walla Elks Lodge.