Ripley County was indeed lucky that Violet Toph, d/o Thomas Garrett and Olive (Jackson) Toph was born in Springdale on December 29, 1878. She was their only child. She devoted her life to gathering information about Ripley County and the people who have made it their home down the many years it has been a part of this State of Indiana.
Almost every day, after her retirement, that she served as curator of the Ripley County Museum at the end of the day, she would reach for pen or pencil and any piece of paper and start to write another chapter about the community she had called home. She may have just returned from a long walk over the hills and valleys of her beloved county. Often she trudged as many as twenty miles a day to chase down a fresh lead to a new story or family history. She would go up to the door of a home and ask for the information about the family, who their ancestors were, where the family come from and any other genealogical facts. All of these family facts of hundreds of Ripley County Families are recorded in TOPH PAPERS. History of county, towns, churches, schools and events both good and bad are written about in “The People’s Hislory of Ripley County”.
Her zeal for recording this material for posterity into the history of Ripley County for future generation is a source of information for people today. She recorded not only the good but also the skeletons in Ripley County history. She had written hundreds of pages about the county and the people who have passed through its history. Stacks of manuscript overflowed into every corner of her modest home.
Her father ran a general store and a post office in Springdale while she was growing up. The little village is no longer there. Later Violet and her mother moved to Versailles.
She started teaching Latin, English, Home Economics and Botany before she received her high school diplomo. She started her training to be a teacher at Indiana State Normal School but her education was interrupted by measles. She later received her A.B. degree from the school in 1921. She had started teaching in 1900. She taught in many of the one room schools of that time. She earned a life license in teaching from the State of Indiana.
She lived alone in Versailles after the deaths of her parents until she passed away 11 Oct, 1956 and is buried in Cliff Hill Cemetery next to her parents.

Resources:

History and Directory of Ripley County by Ed. C. Jerman (reprint 1983) and Ripley County History, Book 1 by the Ripley County Historical Society Committee