Jeff Rankin: Kirkwood native preserved her father’s banking legacy
Jeff Rankin
The Rankin File
Growing up in Monmouth during the 1970s, one of the interesting landmarks I recall was a circular brick fountain in front of the National Bank of Monmouth’s Colonial Drive-In on East Broadway. It was particularly memorable because of a recurring nighttime prank by members of a Monmouth College sorority, who would drop a Salvo laundry tablet into the basin and by morning the fountain would be overflowing with suds.
Affixed to the masonry was a bronze plaque, announcing that it was the Myra Tubbs Ricketts Memorial Fountain. I always chuckled at that name, especially having no idea who Mrs. Ricketts was or why a fountain would be named for her. A few years later, however, when I became an employee of the National Bank, I would learn all about the Tubbs and Ricketts families, and about Myra’s prominent role in the bank’s history.