Catherine Ryan : Short Biography

Her parents, George Ryan and Johanna Russell were married in the church of St. Kieran and Our Lady, Ballylooby, Tipperary, on Feb 16, 1836. Catherine was the seventh of eight children, with siblings Dennis, John, Hanora, Mary, Ellen, Johanna and Margaret. She was baptized on May 12, 1850, at St. John the Baptist, Duhill, the day following her birth. In later years she would incorrectly list her birthdate as March 11, 1852.

The Ryan family lived in the Townland of Castlegrace where George worked as a millworker at the Castlegrace Mill. George died in 1865 and it appears most of the family departed Ireland for Wales and America. The Tullahorton-Castlegrace Cemetery is his likely resting place.

Catherine, her mother Johanna, and two of her sisters, Hanora and Mary, moved to the Rhondda Valley, Wales before 1870. In 1872 Catherine married Michael William O’Brien (Limerick) at St. Dubritius Roman Catholic Chapel, Treforest. Michael and Catherine had 14 children between 1873-1892, all in the Rhondda Valley, Wales (they lived between Hopkinstown and Tonypandy). Michael worked in the coal collieries.

Catherine left Tonypandy, Wales, in 1905 a year after Michael’s death. Sailing from Liverpool to Quebec, Canada, she initially settled with her children in the frontier mining town of Fernie, British Columbia. After a few years of traveling between Cambridge, Massachusetts to stay with her sisters, Johanna and Margaret, and her children in Fernie, in 1909 she finally settled in Renton, Washington, USA, buying a house next to the new St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Renton. In 1919, a new priest was assigned to the growing parish - Fr. William Carey. A native of Garnavilla, Tipperary, Fr. Carey’s family had known Catherine’s family in Ireland.

Catherine died in 1920 with Fr. Carey performing the mass, and in her obituary it noted “…they had known each other in Ireland when their parents had lived side by side and the close tie then had abridged two continents.”. Catherine is buried in Seattle at Calvary Catholic Cemetery.