Aunt Bud was Viola Elizabeth Ryan, a sister to our grandfather Paul Ryan Senior and a favorite
aunt of our dad Paul Ryan Junior. Her date of death was a mystery that I decided to apply my finer detective skills to.
In this picture you see CatherinePierce Ryan, Paul Junior, Violet Ryan ("Aunt Bud") and our uncle Peter Ryan. I
believe this was taken at Paul Junior's college graduation 1955. So I knew she
was alive at least until the spring of 1955. For a long time, I've been
trying to track down some more details about Aunt Bud's life especially
when she died and where she was buried. Our uncle Peter told us once that he
remembered that she was living on Haskell Street with our grandparents Paul Senior and Catherine Ryan
because she was ill. He came home from school one day and found her
dead. No one could really remember when that was but I figured
1955-1958 as a range because Peter would probably have graduated by
about 1958 when he was 18. That narrowed it down but that's still a
pretty big range to search. Both our uncles Tim and Peter thought it might be 1956 or
1957 so I started to search day by day through the Gloucester newspapers
for an obituary.
Just before we left for a recent trip to Gloucester Massachusetts, I prepped myself to research
Aunt Bud and Uncle Jack (John Ryan), who supposedly had died of an accidental
gunshot wound. Lo and behold some new digital references had become
available so I learned that Aunt Bud died in 1957 and Uncle Jack in 1939
(the year of the accident). So I began searching the Gloucester Daily Times at the Sawyer Library day by day through
"only" 1957 without much luck the first time. But the second time, I
tried the roll of microfilm that held copies of the paper from Oct-Dec
1957 figuring that range might be a good bet because school is in
session most of that time since Peter remembered he had some home from
school to find her. (Nancy Drew has nothing on my detecting skills!). And this is what I found from early December:
Peter was right again! He's got great information. I was quite pleased
to find her. You'll notice it says she was buried in the family plot
at Calvary. The only family plot I was aware of at Calvary in Gloucester is this one for our grandparents Paul Senior, Catherine Pierce Ryan and Paul's mother Kathryn Bentley Ryan:
We noticed her arrangements were made by the Greely Funeral Home and I
remember our mother saying this is the place always used by the Ryans. My husband Jim
suggested we go there and ask. I was a little reluctant, but off we
went and BOY was it worth the attempt!! A very nice lady was wonderful
enough to go up into the attic to locate their books from 1957 and show
us the page in their records for Aunt Bud's services:
Perhaps you'll notice that the drawing of the plot seems to indicate the
burial of mother Katherine Bentley Ryan AND Arthur 1955 from Florida!
Arthur is another "lost" Ryan so this was huge. I was tickled to think
I'd found Aunt Bud and her brother Arthur so we went back to Calvary to
see if we could find Sect 15 Range 15 Lot 13. No luck. I called the
Archdiocese of Boston and they said she was in Sect 17 Range 1 Lot 13.
Back to the cemetery. Still no luck. Apparently there is some
confusion with Calvary cemetery records prior to 1960. The Archdiocese
"cannot confirm or deny" that Aunt Bud is buried there so we cannot have
her name added to the stone--which was my intention at first.
We feel Aunt Bud and her brother Arthur are also buried in this plot. We don't know why
their names do not appear but I can speculate that it was just too
expensive. The monument people told us it would be $410 plus a $20 fee
to the Archdiocese to add Aunt Bud to the stone. That was more than I
was expecting so I suppose in 1955 or 1957 if you pro-rate that amount,
it would still be kind of expensive to add those
names, even if the other siblings helped out. And perhaps it should
just stay that way.
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