Talented former footballer falls 12 metres from ladder
In 1930, much like today, people probably thought of spring as a time of new life, growth and renewal.
Some might have also equated the time of year with melting snow, warmer outdoor temperatures, wide open playing fields, and the beginning of a new soccer football season.
On April 3, 1930, Andrew Ryan was fatally injured after falling forty feet off of a ladder while cleaning valves at Lock 7 on the Welland Ship Canal. The Merritton ambulance rushed him to Homer Construction Hospital but he died a short time later of internal injuries.
According to the April 4, 1930, Welland–Port Colborne Evening Tribune, Ryan was “one of the best soccer football players in the district.” On the same day, The St. Catharines Standard wrote “he was for years a brilliant exponent of soccer football,” although at age 47 he must have been retired from the game.
Ryan was born Feb. 13, 1883, in Dundee, Scotland to John and Catherine (O’Neill) Ryan. He had five brothers and two sisters (Jane, James, John, Francis, Harry, Patrick, and Alice). At 28 years of age, in May 1911, he, along with his younger brother, Patrick, boarded the S.S. Cassandra bound for Montreal, Canada.
According to the passenger list, Ryan was a bricklayer destined for Merritton. A year later, on July 27, 1912, he married Mary Milligan of Thorold. Mary, also born in Scotland, was 20 years old at the time.
The couple would go on to have three daughters, Catherine, Clara
and Patricia, and two sons, Andrew and Douglas. At the time of Catherine’s birth, Dec. 28, 1912, Ryan was employed as a rubber worker in Merritton. Tragedy befell the family when Mary died in 1920, just 20 days after the birth of their son Douglas. She was buried in an unmarked grave in Victoria Lawn Cemetery.
One year after Mary died, Ryan was recorded in the 1921 Canada census as a widower living with his four eldest children — all under the age of nine — at 8 Manning St., St. Catharines. Their youngest child, Douglas, while still a newborn, had been given over to be raised by William and Elizabeth (Mackie) West of Niagara Falls, N.Y. Elizabeth was Ryan’s niece, the daughter of Ryan’s eldest sister Jane. In that same 1921 census, Ryan’s brother Patrick was listed as a boarder in the Ryan household.
Ryan found employment at numerous jobs after his arrival in Canada and also worked in the United States for a little more than a year. He was a general labourer working on the canal at the time of his death.
A post-mortem examination and inquest into Ryan’s death was ordered by the coroner. According to a co-worker who testified at the inquest, Ryan felt a chill that early spring day and said he needed a coat. The next thing the co-worker knew, Ryan had fallen from a ladder to his death. There was meager evidence provided at the inquest and his death was ruled accidental.
Ryan’s funeral started out at the home of his brother Harry, at 35 Canal St. in Merritton, and continued at St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church. Interment took place in Victoria Lawn Cemetery. The exact whereabouts of his grave in the Roman Catholic Singles Section is not known.
While details of who in Ryan’s family were still in Scotland are unknown, in Canada he left behind three daughters, two brothers, and one sister (his siblings were all in Merritton). His son Andrew had already died in 1924 at the age of eight, it is believed when struck by an automobile when in Buffalo.
After the death of Mary Ryan, the children were split up. Catherine was in an orphanage in the United States and was raised by a Jewish family (she became a maid in Buffalo), Clara was taken in by her uncle Harry Ryan and aunt Ann in Merritton, and Patricia lived with nuns and was in part also raised by the Wests.
When Ryan fell from the ladder, apparently it was his brother Patrick who was waiting for him at the top. According to family lore, Patrick was so traumatized that he ended up dying later in the Hamilton psychiatric hospital.
Ryan’s three daughters all went on to marry. Catherine became Mrs. Thomas E. Novy, Clara became Mrs. John Jackson and Patricia became Mrs. Thomas Riggi.