The three Ryan boys came from Tipperary, Ireland, to New Orleans. Thomas, Patrick, and Philip. I don’t know the year. Philip and Patrick were both stonecutters. That’s all we know about the family in Ireland.
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So they built the canals, and then Philip and Patrick married the McLaughlin sisters, Nancy and Ellen, whose family lived on a land grant around 131st and Wolf Road. It was a homestead.
Thomas McLaughlin, my great-grandfather, gave each couple 40 acres. But neither of the Ryan boys being farmers, they didn’t stay there very long.
Some of Patrick’s children stayed on the farm, and some of them came to the city. Cousin Nancy took an apartment at 12th and Crawford, now Roosevelt and Pulaski. Blanche stayed on the farm.
And he said, “I couldn’t stand it any longer, watching him die.”
