Mary Rose Black Ryan
December 2, 1923 - September 9, 2021
Mary Rose Black Ryan (nee Allen), long-time Berkeley resident, passed peacefully in her sleep on September 9, 2021. In her long life – she died 58 days short of her 98th birthday having outlived two husbands – Mrs. Black Ryan was an artist, teacher, journalist and editor, and a widely traveled participant in international affairs.
Born in Salt Lake City, the daughter of physician and amateur ornithologist George Allen and Ruth Larson Allen, she and her siblings grew up on the family’s private bird sanctuary, since passed on to the city and known today as Allen Park. In the 1930s, Mary Rose earned a bachelor of arts degree at the University of Utah and attended the Chicago Institute of Art. Barely out of college, she served as a teacher on the Navajo Nation Reservation at the St. Christopher Mission, commuting to work at a rural school on horseback, and later teaching in the Salt Lake City School System.
During World War II, Mary Rose organized the interracial Utah Youth Council and participated in the formation of the Utah Association for the United Nations, directing its Salt Lake City center for three years and convening study groups on the emerging postwar world. Upon the U.N.’s partition of Palestine in 1949, she became managing editor of Land Reborn, the New York-based journal of the American Christian Palestine Committee, representing 55,000 American Christians on behalf of the new state of Israel and displaced Jews of wartime Europe and Asia.
In 1954, Mary Rose married agricultural economist Albert G. Black of the University of California Berkeley, who had been President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first Governor of the Farm Credit Administration, largely credited with saving the U.S. agricultural industry during the Depression. At the time of their marriage, Dr. Black served as Chief of Mission for the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization advising the Israeli government. The couple subsequently lived and worked in Israel for five years, observing the creation, from scratch, of a modern democratic state in the Middle East. Taking a special interest in Israeli minority groups, including Arabs, Druze, Armenians, and others during that period, Mary Rose spoke on their challenges to more than 200 churches and schools in the U.S.
Dr. Black’s Chief of Mission responsibilities eventually took the couple on to live in other newly independent countries in the Middle East and Asia, including postings in India, Pakistan, Ceylon (Sri Lanka today), Cyprus, and Thailand, the last where Mary Rose served as associate editor of the Bangkok Tribune newspaper. During this period, she took a special interest in the plight of refugees, inspired by her experience in Israel.
In 1962, the Blacks returned to the U.S., purchasing a home in Berkeley. Mary Rose, believing the Israeli democracy could be a “blueprint” for Third World countries to enter the modern world, immediately commenced an outreach on behalf of Israel, organizing the California Christian Committee for Israel (CCCI), promoting friendship between American Christians and Israeli citizens. With the death of Dr. Black in 1966, Mary Rose made repeated returns to Israel to pursue educational opportunities for young Arabs. She also visited Israel’s technical-assistance projects in ten African countries, and for the next 15 years, served as scientific editor in the U.C. College of Natural Resources.
In 1983, Mary Rose married Harold J. Ryan, retired Los Angeles County Commissioner of Agriculture, after a long friendship between their families and Mary’s editing assistance to Harold in his authoring of a history of agriculture in L.A. County. Their courting involved mutual visits at Harold’s residence in Pasadena and in Berkeley, where Harold would assist Mary with CCCI business. After the marriage, they lived alternately in both cities. Harold died in 1987, and Mary Rose continued her work from Berkeley with CCCI and support of Israel. This included annual lectures and audiovisual presentations on life in Israel.
Over her professional life, Mary Rose was accorded many awards. A few include:
Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Humanitarian Service, Pacific Coast Region, Hadassah, 1978.
Special Achievement Award for a Lifetime of Service to Zionism, Zionist Organization of America, 1979.
Christian Honoree Enhancing American-Israeli Relations, East Bay Region, Jewish National Fund, 1981.
Trees of Life, Forest of Brotherhood and Peace planted in the Holy Land, National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel, 1985.
Lowdermilk Memorial Friendship Award for “unusual dedication in bringing Christians and Jews together in the service of Israel”, California Christian Committee for Israel, 1989.
A talented artist, toward the end of her life while in assisted living, Mary Rose returned to a love of painting landscapes, perhaps influenced by her childhood growing up amid the spectacular scenery of Utah. Mary Rose Black Ryan’s remains were laid to rest with those of her parents at Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Salt Lake City. She was preceded in death by sisters Amy and Sally Allen and brother George Allen, Jr., all of Salt Lake City, and is survived by her grandson David Ryan of Cayucos, California, who served as her guardian during her later life; nieces Lida Rose Harris and Amy Skaife, both of Spokane, Washington; nephews Lincoln Allen of Cottonwood Heights, Utah, and Allen Gear of Redmond, Washington; and numerous friends in Israel, including Eli Lahav and Carmella Rogachevsky, and in the United States, including Ruth Thayler, Marlene Tait, Robert Seymoure, and David Esler of the San Francisco Bay Area.
All will remember with fondness Mary Rose’s warmth, compassion, generosity, hospitality, charity, and love for humanity and the natural world. Among her many acts of kindness were to cover medical expenses for a woman in need who had worked for her and the college tuition of another who would not otherwise have been able to attain a degree.
Family and friends wish to extend their appreciation to the staff of the Golden Living Guest Home of Oakland for their care of Mrs. Black Ryan during her final years. Because Mary Rose loved trees, could name the various species, and often featured trees in her paintings, friends are encouraged to plant a tree in her name or contribute to tree-planting programs.