THE RYAN FAMILY OF NEW EDINBURG AND THE GREAT WAR By Alan Bowker (Article)
Alan Bowker
Introduction:
Since 2014 I have been chronicling the lives of the men from MacKay United Church in New Edinburgh who fell in World War I. In all 140 men and one nursing sister from MacKay Presbyterian answered the call, and nineteen gave their lives. But telling the stories of the nineteen quickly morphed into a broader study of a church and a community at war, and it became increasingly apparent that the story was really about families – families that watched and waited, that bore the hardship of war, that experienced grief and loss, that sought to retain their faith that the war was a battle for freedom and civilization and their hope that victory would usher in a better world.
This article tells the story of one such family, the Ryans of New Edinburgh. Its centrepiece is John Henry “Jack” Ryan, one of the greatest athletes of his day, who deserves to be better known. But it is also a story of the other members of the family, including the oldest brother who helped raise his younger siblings and then also perished in the war. Finally, it is a reminder that tragedy in this era did not only come from war, and that even from the darkest days can come new life and new hope.
This research would have been impossible before the advent of ancestry.ca and its massive trove of public records, newspapers.com with its algorithms that allow searches through decades of newspapers, the digitized military records now on line from Libraries and Archives Canada, and other sources of digitized records including the Canadian War Museum and the British records at Kew, and the diligent work of many amateur historians of the First World War who share their findings on a variety of on-line forums. To these I have also been able to add the archival records of MacKay Presbyterian Church. But no story told only from records is ever complete, and it is my hope that through articles such as this one I might make contact with families who may have records, artifacts or recollections.
The Ryan Family
At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, John and Susanah Ryan lived at 39 Crichton Street, across the intersection from McCreery’s grocery store. John, a Catholic, was born in 1851 in the United States of an American father and an Irish mother; Susanah, a Presbyterian, was born in 1857 in Quebec of an Irish mother and Scots father. John was a contractor working out of his home. They had four children: Mabel (b. 1880), Mathew William (b. 1882), John Henry (b. 1885) and Margaret Lena (b. 1886).
But John appears to have died about the year 1900 and a few years later his wife also passed away. The 1911 census records the four Ryan siblings still living at 39 Crichton Street, but with Mathew William now the head of the family, earning $800 a year as a brakeman or conductor for the Ottawa Electric Railway, which employed many people in the Burgh at that time. As children, the Ryans attended Sunday School at MacKay Presbyterian Church and as adults they all attended church regularly.
In 1910 Margaret Lena Ryan married William Crowe at MacKay. Crowe had started out as an electrician with Ahearn and Soper, who had pioneered the street railway and what would become Ottawa Hydro, and he was now a partner in Costello and Crowe, an electrical supply and contracting company. Lena attended MacKay Presbyterian regularly until the couple moved to Gladstone Avenue in 1914.
Mathew William and John Henry Ryan had also left the Burgh by 1914, but the strong tie to MacKay Presbyterian was maintained with the marriage in 1911 of their oldest sister Mabel to John T. McElroy (1878-1965). McElroy was the youngest child in a pioneer family in New Edinburgh and in MacKay church. His father had died when he was a child and he was raised by his widowed mother. He went to work at a young age in the Post Office Department, and by 1911 had risen to be in charge of equipment and supplies in that Department. When his mother died in 1913 McElroy inherited the family house at 68 Crichton Street. John and Mabel McElroy had a son in 1912 and a daughter in 1913. Athletic and well-connected in the community, John was beginning to play a prominent role in the church as a member of its Board of Managers. Mabel was the family member both Ryan brothers gave as their next of kin when they enlisted.
Mathew William Ryan John McElroy
Mathew William Ryan, known as “Billy”, does not appear to have had much education beyond public school and had been the brother responsible for keeping his family together when their parents died. Still single at age 32 in 1914, he was a noted athlete on local teams and had a wide circle of friends; but he was perhaps best described in the eulogy given by MacKay Presbyterian’s Minister, Rev. Peter Anderson as “a big-hearted, unassuming, hard-working man” whose death caused “great regret throughout the congregation.”
Mathew William Ryan enlisted on July 1, 1915 in the 59th Battalion, a recruiting battalion that drew from Eastern Ontario and Quebec and was based at Barriefield camp in Kingston (now CFB Kingston). He was 5’ 8” tall, with a 38” chest when expanded, medium complexion, blue eyes, and brown hair. Learning from the experience of the First Contingent of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, which had been sent quickly to England in the fall of 1914 only to endure a wretched winter in training camps on Salisbury Plain, the 59th
(pictured here in August 1915) trained for nearly a year in Canada. In April 1916 the 59th sailed for England on the Olympic from Halifax. There it was broken up to provide replacements for the heavy losses suffered by existing units at the front. For Ryan, this meant being assigned in June 1916 to the 24th Battalion (Quebec regiment) in the Second Canadian Division. Ryan had been appointed a Lance Corporal in November 1915 but when he went to the front he reverted to the rank of private. Billy Ryan’s service record is, like his personality, very “quiet” – no illnesses, wounds or hospitalization, no discipline problems.
The 24th Battalion, originally formed around the Victoria Rifles of Montreal, was based at Dickebusch, a small, agricultural village in Belgium just behind one end of the Canadian line holding the St. Eloi-Hooge sector. Ryan was immediately introduced, like so many others before him, to the battlefield later described in graphic terms by Victor Wheeler, a signaller with the 50th Battalion. During his first week at the front, Wheeler sees men blown to bits by shells as they line up for food, bring provisions or shells up to the line, run messages, or seek rest in a shelter. They are knocked off by machine guns or killed by snipers as they look over the parapet. They are sent, terrified, on work parties or raids into no-man’s land, and even killed by friendly fire. They see a steady stream of broken men being carried out of the front lines. If they have lived, they have become hardened soldiers, inured to the mud and terror of life on the western front. In July and August, 1916 alone, a thousand Canadian soldiers were killed in this sector without fighting any major battle. This was called “wastage” in official records.
One victim of this was Billy Ryan. On August 19, 1916, just as the battalion was preparing to march to the Somme for the battles to come at Courcelette, Mathew William Ryan was reported “Killed in Action” “in the trenches South East of St Eloi.” No other details were given. His time at the front had lasted a little over two months. The MacKay Register of Deaths reflected the more exalted view necessary for home morale: “Pte William Ryan paid the supreme Sacrifice in the field of battle, and was buried with military honours, ‘somewhere in France’ – another hero added to the list of the world’s heroes.”
John Henry Ryan
In 1914 “Jack” Ryan was a clerk in the Interior Department making $800 a year. But he was also one of the most famous sporting figures in Ottawa – in fact one of the greatest all-round athletes the city had ever produced. With a powerful build and blazing speed, Ryan excelled at hockey, where he was a star player on several teams; rowing (he was an active member of the New Edinburgh Canoe Club); skiing (he jumped the longest distance in 1914 on a ski jump established near the Chateau Laurier); but especially at football, where “Rufus” Ryan (so named because of his auburn hair) was repeatedly described in newspaper reports as “peerless,” a “star,” “incomparable,” “the greatest outside wing ever to play the game in Canada.” When the Ottawa Football Club, a precursor of the Roughriders, joined the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union (IRFU), a precursor of the CFL which included the Toronto Argonauts, Hamilton Tigers, and a Montreal team, Ryan was a fixture on the Ottawa squad. Year after year the Ottawa Journal sports reporter rejoiced that Ryan was turning out for football, as his presence would boost Ottawa’s chances against their arch-rival, Hamilton – and there is no question that when Ryan was in the lineup the team won. In 1908 Ottawa beat Hamilton in a hard-fought contest to claim the IRFU championship but lost to the University of Toronto team in a game for the newly established Grey Cup. In 1911 the Ottawa Journal reported one match against the Toronto Argonauts, “Rufus Ryan was undoubtedly the star. He tackled like a fiend, but what is best of all, he was clean” and he had the respect of all. Hockey and football were tough in those days and with lax officiating games were often marked by dirty play and even turned into brawls. On at least two occasions during his hockey and football careers Ryan sustained serious injury.
But Ryan was repeatedly dogged by questions regarding his amateur status, because he had played for the Victoria hockey team against the Montreal Wanderers and a Renfrew team which had professionals on it. In 1908 a special meeting of the IRFU Board of Governors met for a whole day to consider his case and confirmed that given that he had not received any remuneration, Ryan’s own explanation, and the “testimony they have received as to the excellent character of the applicant”, his amateur status was confirmed – but it was made clear these were “special circumstances”. But each year thereafter the question of his amateur status returned – prompted, as the Journal darkly suggested, by the desire of rivals Toronto and Hamilton to keep him off the field (the Montreal governor supported him, likely because Montreal was trying to pry him away from Ottawa). All this seemed not to reflect so much on Ryan’s honour as the seriousness with which amateurism was taken.
None of this kept Ryan out of his other sports, including hockey. He played for the New Edinburgh “Seconds” among other teams, and at one time he was considered for manager of a hockey team. (Note the presence of J. T. McElroy in the picture below at left as one of the team’s managers). But by 1914 his athletic career was winding down due to injuries.
It is not known whether Ryan joined any branch of the militia at the beginning of the war. But on January 1, 1916, John Henry Ryan was gazetted as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Flying Corps (RFC). Although Canada had been a pioneer in aviation, there was no Canadian air force (nor even a Canadian wing of the British air services, as the Australians had) until 1918. Instead, more than 8000 Canadians served with the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service (merged in 1918 into the RAF). The first batch of Canadians from Ottawa for the RFC was recruited in 1915 through the Governor-General’s office, and included well-connected young men like John Booth, grandson of a lumber baron, and the son of the co-owner of the Ottawa Electric Railway, Eddy Soper. That he could be included in such a group revealed the connections Jack Ryan’s athletic prowess had given him. But these early recruits needed a pilot’s license and lessons were expensive – as much as $400 (half a year’s salary for Ryan) for 500 minutes of flying plus ground instruction. Ryan opted to attend a flying school in the United States, though we do not know which one.
In early 1916 at the age of 30, Jack Ryan left for the RFC flying school in Reading, England. The Head of the Registration Branch of the Interior Department presented him with the gift of a meerschaum pipe on behalf of the staff. “He had a great record in football,” wrote a reporter, “and will take with him the best wishes of a very wide circle of friends.” In Reading he learned to fly more advanced planes, in spite of bad weather, scarce equipment, and a shortage of trainers (the British had sent all their pilots to France in 1914 where most were killed). Student pilots discovered things about their aircraft that even their instructors did not know – that is, if they lived. On July 20, 1916, Ryan was gazetted as 2nd Lieutenant Flying Officer (confirmed on August 17) and was sent to France to join 21 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps.
Pilots were a special breed. They needed daring to go aloft in what, in spite of constant improvement, were still flimsy crates built of canvas, wood, and wire. They had to be physically fit with good eyesight and reflexes, and able to withstand cold and hardship. They needed to have good judgement and self-confidence, the ability to learn quickly, the kind of courage that was cool under fire but not reckless, a sixth sense for danger, a killer instinct, and above all the fortitude to withstand prolonged stress. They had to be intelligent and creative but not burdened with the excessive imagination that might induce doubt, hesitation, or fear in themselves and others. Athletes and students made the best candidates, and the British also believed that Canadians were especially well suited, being (as they thought) rugged frontiersmen who could nonetheless fit easily into an elite service still regarded as the preserve of “gentlemen.” Ryan fit the profile to a “T”.
Flying officers had a different life from the infantry in the trenches. Pilots were a valuable resource not to be squandered in work parties and trench raids. They lived in air bases well behind the lines, wore stylish uniforms, slept between clean sheets, and ate four-course meals with wines in an officers’ mess. They had servants and relied on highly trained mechanics to service their machines and guns and get aircraft that had been shot up or crash-landed back into the sky. But their comforts on the ground belied the stark reality that, in the words of historian Ian Mackersey, “several times a day, the pilots and observers were ordered into the air to attack fellow human beings.” They flew their missions over enemy territory, searching the skies for the plane that would dive from behind and riddle them with machine gun bullets before they could react. Aerial combat meant twisting and turning, two miles above the ground, trying to keep the engine from cutting out, firing a Vickers or a Lewis gun as best they could, relying on luck as well as skill. A newly arrived pilot might have as little as fifteen hours of solo flying in England, and by early 1917 his life expectancy at the front was eleven days. Major General Trenchard, head of the RFC, instructed that new pilots should be forwarded to the front as fast as possible to replace those killed so there would be “no empty chairs” at the breakfast table. Bravado and alcohol masked a constant dread, not only of death but of loss of nerve.
By 1916 aircraft were used strategically in support of ground troops as part of an overall battle plan. They performed aerial reconnaissance of enemy artillery, movements, and installations, they bombed enemy aerodromes and transport and communications networks, they strafed troops and artillery, and above all they aimed to sap the enemy’s morale. Trenchard’s doctrine was to assert air superiority by staking out a zone 15 miles deep into German territory, sending in patrols of aircraft flying in formation to perform their missions, and defeating enemy attempts to interdict them. Like the generals on the ground, he was prepared to sustain heavy losses in pursuit of this objective. 21 Squadron was part of a special wing attached to General Headquarters for strategic reconnaissance and bombing operations.
When Ryan joined the squadron it was being refitted with a new aircraft, the Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.12, a single-seater that could fly 95 mph in straight flight but could not climb or manoeuvre easily. It had a primitive mechanism to allow the pilot to fire a belt-fed Vickers machine gun through the propeller (perhaps), and another Vickers on the wing that required an awkward movement to sight – jammed guns and shot propellers continued to be a problem. That it could be a difficult plane to fly was shown by several training accidents, including one involving the commanding officer. On August 8 Ryan crashed into an adjoining field on takeoff on a practice run; fortunately he was unhurt. When 21 Squadron went to the front in late August 1916, the B.E. 12 proved wholly inadequate to the tasks assigned to it.
That summer the Germans deployed the Albatross, a single-seater with a big Mercedes engine with a top speed of 109 mph, which could climb to 3000 feet in five minutes, and could fire a machine through the propeller with devastating accuracy. The German pilots were well-trained and confident, even arrogant, and their leader was the “red baron”, Manfred von Richthofen, so named because the colour of his squadron’s planes struck fear into the hearts of British pilots. They countered Trenchard’s aggressive strategy by grouping planes into wolf packs that attacked patrols, using their temporary numerical superiority and greater manoeuvrability to inflict heavy damage on the slower, clumsier British planes before running for cover. In September the British lost over 100 planes as against one-quarter that many Germans; in October it was over 80 against 12. 21 Squadron lost 19 airmen killed or wounded, and six whose nerves were so shattered they had to be taken out of the line. As the Somme campaign drew to a close in November, its pilots were exhausted. Ryan had been injured and was, in the words of his friend Don Brophy, “completely used up.”
The squadron was sent on leave to England and Ryan was assigned to lead a training squad – the RFC was applying the lessons learned on the Somme and increasing the size of squadrons and the training hours required before pilots could be sent to the front. But after a short rest Ryan wanted back in the fray. In early 1917 Ryan joined 57 Squadron based in Fienvillers, France, which was equipped with the Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.2d, an updated version of the F.E.2.b (pictured here) which had been the mainstay of the British forces in the Somme battles.
It was a two-seater push-plane (with the engine mounted behind the body) with the pilot sitting above and behind the observer who sat (or stood up! – see picture at right) in the nose with a .303 calibre Lewis gun which could fire in all directions on a specially designed, swivelling mount. The F.E.2d, had a 250 hp. Rolls-Royce engine and it had three Lewis guns, one of which could be fired by the pilot. Flying in a circle formation so that each observer could cover another plane as well as his own, it was a flying gun platform that could (barely) hold its own against the smaller, faster German planes.
In April, 1917, the RFC squadrons were assigned to support the British offensive in the Arras sector. 57 Squadron did “line patrol”, strategic reconnaissance, and bombing. The British had more planes than the Germans did in the sector, but the Germans responded with their familiar tactic of attacking British formations in “wolf packs”. The result was “bloody April” in which the British lost 500 pilots and 1000 planes. On April 30, 1917 the Germans further upgraded their “wolf-pack” tactics by combining all their fighters into a single group which was dubbed “Richthofen’s Circus” (even though the great German ace was not involved). In the words of the official historian of the RAF:
The new group numbering twenty single-seaters, in two formations, set out from the Douai aerodrome on the morning of the 30th. Their first encounter was with seven F.E.2ds of a line patrol of No. 57 Squadron and three Sopwith triplanes of No. 8 (Naval) Squadron. Two of the F.E.s were shot down in the German lines and a third, with a wounded pilot and a dying observer, crashed in the British area.
This wounded pilot was almost certainly Jack Ryan. According to his service file, on 30 April 1917 Ryan was wounded in combat while on patrol at Miramount in the Lievin-Noreuil sector, which straddles Arras. His Observer was also wounded. Ryan was taken to 45 Casualty Clearing Station in Achiet-le-Grand, a large village 19 kilometres south of Arras along the Arras-Bapaume Road, where he died of wounds on May 2. He was buried, alongside others who died at the hospital that day, in the extension to the Achiet-le-Grand communal cemetery.
The death of “one of the most popular athletes that ever lined up with an Ottawa team” hit the sports community in Ottawa like a bombshell. Tributes poured in from cities whose teams Ryan had played against – tributes not only to a great athlete, but to “one who had always played the game fairly and squarely.” On May 5, the Ottawa Journal devoted an editorial to him:
Thousands of Ottawa people have cheered Jack Ryan, brilliant rugby player. These same thousands feel the loss of Flight-Lieutenant Jack Ryan of the Royal Flying Corps, dead of wounds in France.
Of all games for boys, none is better than rugby football. It teaches the player to keep going, to stay in the game, despite hard knocks. Rugby is a school of experience for the youth who stands on the threshold of life. The habit of setting the teeth and plunging ahead in spite of hard knocks is useful. Those who do not possess it are the better of [sic] acquiring it.
Not many years ago, Ottawa had a famous rugby team. The strong combination of that team was Ryan and Stronach, outside wings, who were always “on the ball.” Many will recall how these two stalwart athletes used to dash down the field, through a maze of opponents.
And now Ryan is dead at the front, while Stronach is fighting as an officer in the infantry. The old combination of speed and pluck that brought Ottawa some of her proudest athletic triumphs is broken in the terrible game of war. Ottawa will not soon forget Jack Ryan, who played the game through.
The death of “one of the most popular athletes that ever lined up with an Ottawa team” hit the sports community in Ottawa like a bombshell. Tributes poured in from cities whose teams Ryan had played against – tributes not only to a great athlete, but to “one who had always played the game fairly and squarely.”
The McElroy Family
Mabel McElroy, now with a young family of her own, had to settle the effects of her two brothers killed in the war. Jack Ryan left no will and the British War Office generated a huge paper trail collecting a mess debt of a little over three pounds, calculating the amounts due his estate, and itemizing his personal effects – a watch, a cigarette case, and a case for goggles, as well as his discs, buttons and shoulder badges. They misspelled Mabel’s name and at first erroneously informed her that he had died in a flying accident. Then, because his estate was a little over 100 pounds – a substantial sum at the time – it had to be collected from the militia department in Ottawa and Mabel McElroy needed a letter signed by her husband certifying that she was indeed the person entitled to claim it.
But it was not war alone that killed young people in those years and even those families who did not have a son in the war were not immune from the pain of sudden loss. Between 1914 and 1918, as the MacKay Presbyterian Church death register and the Beechwood Cemetery records make clear, not only did young children continue to die at a rate we would consider horrifying today, but of an average of 10 deaths a year recorded in the death register from 1907 to 1923, about half were people in the prime of life, from causes such as pneumonia, TB, diphtheria, stomach ailments, accidents (drowning, hit by streetcar) or epidemics of spinal meningitis, as well as deaths in infancy and from complications of childbirth. And this does not take into account the losses suffered in the Spanish Flu epidemic as the war was drawing to its close, which required the church to close for five weeks.
On July 24, 1918, Mabel McElroy died at home, at the age of 38. The MacKay death register attributed her death to heart trouble and pleurisy; the Beechwood Cemetery register lists her cause of death as Graves’ disease, an autoimmune disease of the thyroid. There were likely at least two other causes. Her death came only a few weeks after the birth of a daughter, Phyllis Jean McElroy. And there was probably truth in the suggestion in the death notice in the Ottawa Journal that “her death was hastened by grief caused by the loss of her two brothers, John Ryan and William Ryan, both well-known Ottawa athletes, who were killed in action.” To fill to the brim the cup of tragedy, her infant daughter then died at age five months. John McElroy had lost two brothers-in-law and was now the widowed father of a five-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl. Lena Crowe, the sole survivor of the four Ryan children, would recive Jack’s memorial cross and war gratuity.
Last Resting places
Mathew William Ryan is buried in the Dickebusch New Military Cemetery in Belgium, located on the Kerkstraat, which is a small street that leads out of the town of Dikkebuss (modern Flemish spelling). Two hundred metres past the village church lies a substantial cemetery divided in two by the road. The larger part is on one side and the extension, with the Cross of Remembrance, is on the other. Ryan’s grave is in the extension.
Around the cemetery are small suburban houses and some open areas for playing fields and storage buildings, with a corn field at the back, and a low hedge on one side separating it from a house which is literally next door. Nonetheless, once inside, the cemetery becomes an island of peace, green and quiet in what was once a desolate battlefront. It has minimal landscaping but there are a few large trees, and there are flowers among the headstones. Those who lie here were buried near where they fell, and Ryan is surrounded by several rows of Canadians, interspersed with British soldiers, reflecting the ongoing fighting and losses in this area as the Canadians moved in and out of the line.
John Henry Ryan rests in the Achiet-le-Grand Military Cemetery, at the north-west side of the village of Achiet, alongside a communal cemetery that serves the town. It lies amid open, gently rolling terrain where wind turbines now turn lazily in fields of sugar beets and canola. It is a large cemetery, containing 1424 Commonwealth and 42 German graves. It is well laid out with trees around the perimeter and neat rows of headstones with flowers planted among them, with a stone wall surrounding it and the war stone and cross in the middle. Many of the soldiers buried here are “known unto God,” especially a long row from the 1916 battle of the Somme. Ryan is one of the few Canadians, situated in a row with others from a variety of units.
Mabel McElroy lies in Beechwood Cemetery, together with her husband, the infant daughter who died so soon after her, and her other two children. John M. (“Jack”) McElroy (1912-1991) would serve (and be wounded) in World War II. Margaret Mabel (1913- 2002) would have a long career in the public service.
Lest we forget
In peace as in war, life went on, though the families carried the memory of loss as an aching wound. In 1929 John McElroy would marry again, to Jessie (McIntyre 1903-1996), and they would have seven children. By 1921 he was a middle manager in the Post Office. As chair of the MacKay Presbyterian Building Committee he would spearhead the campaign to pay off the debt for the new sanctuary the church had built in 1910 – which culminated in an elaborate ceremony in 1922 at which the mortgage was burned. He would continue to play an active role in the affairs of the MacKay United Church after church union in 1925 and was a senior Elder when he died in 1965.
Lena’s husband, William Crowe, was prospering as Costello and Crowe steadily grew in the electrical boom of the 1920s. William Crowe would be President of the company at the time of his death in 1958 (CCB continues to be in business, advertising over 100 years of service). William and Lena would have three sons who would become electricians, but they would lose two other children to illness, and Lena would die in 1947 of tuberculosis. They are also buried in Beechwood Cemetery.
Billy Ryan is now remembered only as a name on a wall and it has been a privilege to bring to life this unassuming, honest man who gave so much. The belief of the Ottawa Journal editorialist that “Jack” Ryan would not be soon forgotten proved untrue. Within a few years he was overshadowed by other famous athletes, including Aurel Joliat, Eddie Gerard, and Joe Tubman, all from MacKay Presbyterian. Perhaps this article will stimulate some long- overdue recognition. He should, at the very least, be in the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame.
[1] I have not included footnotes in this article but would be happy to furnish references on request. Team pictures used here are in the City of Ottawa Archives.
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