Remembering Celeste Fripp
Celeste Fripp was a co-founder of Best Friends and was one of the real anchors of the organization in its early days.
Organized, intelligent, and very practical, Celeste served as Best Friends’ first HR person (she was the entire department). She was one of the first major gifts officers, and she was instrumental in starting the planned giving department. She also was the first board secretary and together with her husband, John Fripp, really formed the administrative hub of the organization until it was fleshed out.
In Best Friends’ earliest days, Celeste helped “hold the center” of the fledging organization and often had the thankless task of being the "sensible" one amid a group of self-described “crazies.” She shunned the spotlight but was sharp as a tack, and it’s hard to see how the organization could have flourished without her.
We do know of one time when Celeste let her emotions get the better of her: when she fell in love with her husband, John, who declared, “So you’ve seen the light!” (He had loved her for a while already.)
After decades of marriage, when she eventually lost him and then experienced a long decline of her own, supported by friends Celeste requested that her ashes be buried alongside his and that from the rest of the world she be given no fanfare.
Celeste lives on in every sensible thing that ever happens at Best Friends.
