John Tippit, 73, and his wife Ethel, 77, just got back from Ethel, Washington, where the "Welcome to Ethel" sign is less than a mile from the "Leaving Ethel" sign.

The Chattanooga couple traveled more than 2,500 miles to visit a town that took them 50 seconds to traverse in a rental car.

The trip was actually the final leg of a three-year quest to visit every little town in America named Ethel. (If you're wondering, there are no big-city Ethels.)

There's Ethel, Mississippi (337 miles from Chattanooga); Ethel, Arkansas (452 miles from here); Ethel, Louisiana (515 miles); Ethel, West Virginia (368 miles); Ethel, Missouri (643 miles); and Ethel, Washington (2,558 miles).

All together, the couple says they traveled almost 10,000 miles on their Ethel odyssey.

"We wanted to be famous," said John Tippit, a semiretired travel nurse and teacher's assistant at Calvary Christian School. "We are probably the only people in the world who have been to every Ethel in the United States. ... That being said, nobody cares."

Well, Ethel cares.

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Ethel Tippit, who used to make Nutty Buddy wafer bars and other snack cakes at McKee Foods, remembers musing to her sister once about visiting a town named Ethel. But it wasn't until she married John three years ago that the dream began to take shape. Ethel likes to travel. John likes to drive. So crisscrossing the country visiting every Ethel seemed like a perfect pastime.

"We met lots of different people, but we also saw the country," Ethel Tippit said. "It was a life-changing experience. I like to travel and meet people. We didn't have to rush. We weren't on any schedule."

John Tippit found about 18 past or present Ethel communities in the U.S. but only six that met his criterion of having a post office and/or being incorporated.

"There were some Ethelvilles and Ethelburgs, but we only did pure Ethels," he said in an interview. "We were just married, and I wanted to do something for her that was special ... that was out of the ordinary."

The two had attended Calvary Independent Baptist Church on North Terrace for years but only spoke maybe 10 times. But then John asked Ethel to lunch one day, and three months later, they were married. In the 41 months since they got hitched, they've taken a trip every month.

Here's a fun fact or observation from each stop on their Ethel journeys.

-- Ethel, Mississippi, June 2022. The first stop on the calendar was in the Magnolia State, where the town of Ethel is nestled on the eastern side of the Mississippi River. One of the larger towns on the slate, Ethel, Mississippi, has about 470 residents.

The mayor politely turned down a request for a photo from the Tippits because her dog was sick and she had been crying that morning. Instead of a key to the city, the Tippits were given an official Ethel, Mississippi, ballpoint pen, which they cherish.

When John Tippit noted that there was one stop sign in town, he mused that the cops would probably write him a ticket if he ran it. He was told the town had tried to hire a sole policeman for five years without success.

-- Ethel, Arkansas, June 2022. A few miles across the river from Ethel, Mississippi, sits Ethel, Arkansas, but you have to backtrack all the way to Memphis to go to the town on the western side of the river.

The only landmark in Ethel, Arkansas -- a community of 40 people -- is a little country store. On the day the Tippits visited, the store was closed with a sign taped to the front door that said, "Closed. Had to go to Little Rock. Toothache. Won't be open today. Don't know about tomorrow."

Observed John Tippit, "Now, that's about as country as it gets."

-- Ethel, Louisiana, July 2023. If they missed out on the country store in Arkansas, the Tippits hit the jackpot the next summer in Ethel, Louisiana, where they visited Pop's Country Store while staying in a 10,000-square-foot mansion-turned-B&B.

Pop's was a revelation, John Tippit said.

"I walked in there to get a cold drink," he recalled. "They sell truck tires, Cajun sausage, crayfish, hunting gear, bows and arrows, chest waders, boots, motorcycle tires, fishing traps and cast iron pots. I went and told Ethel to come in and look."

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-- Ethel, West Virginia, September 2024. The trip to Ethel, West Virginia, which is barely still a community, provided a taste of Appalachia.

"It has a post office, an old service station and a double-wide," John Tippit said. "That was it. Wrap it up."

One of the couple's funniest memories was people-watching at a nearby Dollar General store.

"Here come these old 65-year-old women in Daisy Duke (shorts) with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths," John Tippit said.

One couple got into a "cuss fight" over whether to spend money on a Dr Pepper or a 12-pack of beer, John Tippit said.

-- Ethel, Missouri, October 2024. One of the Tippit's favorite stops, their visit to Ethel, Missouri, included spending the night at a B&B in a converted schoolhouse. They slept in a former second grade classroom that still had a chalkboard on the wall.

The most interesting feature of the town is a sign, constructed by a now-deceased resident, that gives the mileages to every other town named Ethel in the U.S. The sign was a special delight to John Tippit, who had spent time researching the same information.

"That means in this country with 340 million people, there were two people who know where every Ethel is," he said.

Ethel, Missouri, is so isolated that the Tippits were told to bring their own snacks. One of the nearest towns is Marceline, which was the childhood home for Walt Disney.

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-- Ethel, Washington. April 2025. The Tippits recently returned from their trip to tiny Ethel, Washington, where they were treated to a free lunch by the owner of the town's only store.

While attending a church service in nearby Olympia, Washington, on Easter Sunday, the Tippits were amazed to hear from the pulpit that a visitor from Chattanooga would be preaching the sermon that day.

For a second, John Tippit thought he was being called up to deliver a message but it turned out there was an actual visiting pastor from the Scenic City also at the Baptist church that day.

What are the chances?

Life Stories is published on Mondays. Contact Mark Kennedy at [email protected] or 423-757-6645.