“St. Patrick’s Babe in the Morning”

in First Lady by Jimmy Byron — April 2, 2010 at 11:00 pm | 15 comments

Thelma Catherine Ryan was born in the late hours of March 16, 1912 in a miner’s shack in the small town of Ely, Nevada to William and Kate Ryan. At her mother’s insistence, the baby was named Thelma, though her father began calling her Babe – “my St. Patrick’s Babe in the morning.” She was the youngest of five children; she had two half-siblings from her mother’s first marriage, Neva and Matthew, as well as two brothers, Tom and Bill.

Though Will Ryan was able to secure a steady job in Ely, the boomtown offered him only little more. Not long after Thelma’s birth the family traveled West by train to Los Angeles, settling in the farming community of Artesia. Their house, on a truck farm with ten acres of land, did not have electricity or running water. The stories of traveling to far away places that Will Ryan told to his children had a particularly strong impression on young Thelma.

At the age of six she began school, walking a mile-and-a-quarter with her brothers to the red-brick grammar schoolhouse. So impressed by her calm and maturity, her teachers allowed her to skip second grade. At home, she contributed to the family farm, working, planting, and playing games with her brothers. She demanded much from herself and relished rare moments of free time without restrictions.

In the words of Julie Nixon Eisenhower, Thelma “grew up” at age 13, as Kate Ryan was diagnosed with liver cancer, as well as a kidney affliction known as Bright’s disease. With her mother bedridden at a local doctor’s office for the last two months of her life, Thelma assumed most of the household responsibilities. Tom Ryan saw in his sister many of the same qualities as their mother; she “had a big heart. She sacrificed and did things without complaining.” Her mother died in 1924.

Life went on without Kate, as Thelma cooked, cleaned, and ironed for the family. She continued her schooling and enjoyed acting in plays, securing the lead roles her junior and senior years. Thelma graduated from Excelsior High School in June 1929. That year, Will Ryan contracted tuberculosis. To help pay for hospitalization, Thelma obtained a job at Artesia’s First National Bank. Her father died in May 1930.

With both her parents gone, Thelma took it upon herself to keep home for her brothers. In the fall of 1931, she enrolled at Fullerton Junior College as Patricia Ryan; when asked why she changed her name, she answered, “Patricia was my father’s favorite name… I was his ‘St. Patrick’s Babe in the morning.’” She began working multiple jobs to pay for her schooling, including as a telephone operator, typist, bookkeeper at the local bank in the afternoon, and janitor in the evenings. She jumped at the chance to drive an elderly couple across the United States to Connecticut, and chose to remain on the East Coast. She began working in a New York Catholic hospital as an X-ray technician and later as a secretary.

Wishing to be closer to her family, she journeyed back to California by bus in 1934. She enrolled at the University of Southern California on a scholarship. To supplement her income she worked part time throughout school in the office of the vice president of the university. In addition, she was a retail clerk at Bullocks Wilshire Department Store and even worked as an extra in the film industry. She graduated cum laude in 1937.

Upon graduation, Pat took up roots in the small Orange County town of Whittier. She set her sights on becoming a department store buyer, though instead was selected, after recommendation, to teach commercial courses – typing, bookkeeping, business management and stenography – at Whittier Union High School. A popular teacher on campus, her students remembered Miss Ryan as a disciplinarian with high standards who sought to instill pride in them.

While employed by Whittier Union, Miss Ryan auditioned for the play The Dark Tower. There she met a young lawyer recently graduated from Duke University Law School named Richard Milhous Nixon. The two discovered that they had much in common and Pat liked Nixon’s sense of humor. The pair courted for two years until they were married on June 21, 1940.

At the start of World War II, Richard joined the U.S. Navy. While he was stationed in the Pacific theater from 1942 to 1944, Pat worked as a government economist in San Francisco. The two wrote each other every day. He returned to California near the end of the war and, after living briefly back East, the Nixons settled again in Whittier. In 1946, Richard was approached by a group of politically influential Republicans about running for seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

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