Austin Ripley was a syndicated newspaper columnist for the Chicago Tribune. He wrote a daily column call "Minute Mysteries," featuring Professor Fordney. The series found its way not only in more than 100 newspapers, but also in school classrooms where English teachers found that the short little mysteries aided "…in inferential thinking and reading for details… and productive to start each day …with a minute mystery that the class tries to solve." Ripley also conceived a new feature, "Photo Crime," starring detective Hannibal Cobb who solved hundreds of cases based on one or more photographs combined with a few sparse paragraphs that held the clues for the readers of Look Magazine to solve in every issue. One memorable story was set in Menom-onie, and there were others with apparent local ties. "Rip" was married twice. First, the the early 1920's to character actress, Mabel Ida Albertson, which only lasted a few years. He loved detective stories so much that when he lived in Chicago, Ripley rode in police squad cars daily looking for material. This is when he meets his second wife Leone M. Johannes, who was working at the Tribune, and marries her in December 1933 He comes to Wisconsin in 1938 and settled in Dunn County where he builds a cabin overlooking upper Tainter Lake. He also kept an office in Eau Claire where he did much of his writing in the winter months. His move to this area is surprise because Leone was born and raised in Eau Claire. A reformed alcoholic, Ripley gave up drinking in 1942 and decided to devote his life to helping alcoholic priests. He created and operated treatment centers, called Guest House, at Milwaukee, at Chippewa Falls for five years, in Milwaukee for maybe a year and then Detroit, Mich., and Rochester, Minn. The latter two are still operating today. It was reported that Austin went on to help hundreds of alcoholics. It is estimated he helped more than 9,000 alcoholic Catholic priests at Guest House centers during his lifetime. Austin Ripley slowly began to loose his eyesight and went completely blind two years before his death. He died at home in his cabin he built on Tainter Lake on April11, 1974

Extracted from:
Eau Claire Leader Telegram
Special Publication, Our Story 'The Chippewa Valley and Beyond', published 1976