Kate Ryan Dow 1856 - 1923 From Boston to the Bronx

I've had a bit of Irish luck recently in my quest to round out the story of the Ryan siblings.  A man named Bob Dow contacted me recently as he was interested in Catherine/Katherine Ryan's life as John Dow's wife.  Together we worked to find evidence of her death and John's life after she died.  It's a lovely world!

Catherine is the third child of the original Irish immigrant Timothy Ryan and his wife Mary Squires Ryan.  The older two, Michael and Elizabeth, were born in Newfoundland.  Catherine was the first to be born in the United States.  I was very excited to find her Boston birth record for 1856, placing the young family in Boston at that time.  By the time the next child was born three years later, they were living in Gloucester.  The Ryan family spent many years in Gloucester before Timothy and Mary moved to New Hamphire apparently to be with one (or two) of the sons.  Thus our Gloucester roots took hold.

At the age of 25, Kate married John Dow of Scotland.  A few years later, she gave birth to her son Frank Eddy Dow.  As far as I am aware, she had no other surviving children.  I thank the genealogical stars that Frank Eddy had a rather unique name which makes searching for him a bit easier.  He ends up in Michigan later on which is where Bob and I found his father John.  Contrarily, John Dow is not so easy to search since the name not at all unique.  Bob did the heavy lifting on locating "our" John and I'm very appreciative of his efforts and willingness to share information. 

Though I haven't (yet) found our Kate in the 1920 census, she and John had been living in Massachusetts until at least 1910.  So no wonder it was a surprise to find that she appears in the New York Times in 1923 with her death notice.  It was only because she was "mother to Frank Eddy" that I was able to confirm that our Kate dies in the Bronx in 1923.  Bob shared her death certificate with me. Though some of the details don't quite match, Bob and I feel pretty certain this is our Kate.  It appears she was diabetic.

Twenty years later, her husband John dies in Michigan where Frank Eddy lives.  Someday I hope to track the migration of this family more clearly.  Most of our families stayed close by but this is an exception.  Kate Ryan/Kate Dow are not easy search items and when you realize they could be ANYWHERE it's pretty daunting.  So I'm grateful to have a partner in Bob Dow.  Cheers to Bob!