The Irish standard., 1908-08-22
About $3,000,000 Contributed to the Build
ing of the Sacred Heart Cathedral
at Richmond.
Daughter of John D. Barry, in Her Early Life
Mrs. Ryan Contemplated Entering
Convent.

What Rockefeller is to the Baptist
church and Carnegie is to the educa-
tional and scientific world, Thomas F.
Ryan, through the influence of his
wife, is fast becoming to the American
Catholic Church, writes Margaret B.
Downing in the st. Louis Globe-Demo-
crat Of Aug. IA.
Already there stands to his credit
FIVE churches built completely and en-
dowed against possible disaster, and
one of them is magnificent cathedral,
vast and ornate as any of the Old
World. OF the minor gifts which Mr..
and Mrs. Thomas F. Ryan have made
to the Catholic Church, the list would
be almost as long as the Carnegie ben
efactions to libraries or the Helen
Gould generosity to the Y. M. c. A. A
fine edifice, the Ryan Hall, stands in
the campus of Georgetown University,
the alma mater Of all the Ryan boys,
-.spdssi has been completely furnished
to the smallest detail by Mrs. Ryan.
The exquisite little chapel of the Bless
ed Sacrament connected with the con-
vent Of the Perpetual Alteration, on
the corner of Fourteenth and V streets.
in Washington, is another of Mrs.
Ryan's gifts. There are the churches
at Suffern, N. Y, and at Harrisonburg
and Manchester, Va. which were
erected at her expense, and furnished
with further donations. Mountain
chapels and poor churches of Virginia
and Maryland constantly benefit by the
Ryan millions, while her gifts to prel-
ates and priests for specific purposes
of benevolence amount to half mil
lion dollars yearly
Mrs. Ryan, as ali the world knows,
dwells apart from the interests which
engage nearly all women whose hus-
bands have mounted the scale of for
tune to the multimillionaire region.
She presides over four homes, two of
which are princely domains in Suffern,
NJ. Y, and Nelson County. Virginia
There are thousands of acres in grain
land and woods and fishing streams
and mountain hunting, making the es-
tate equal to the great territorial tracts
owned by hereditary mobiles Of Eu-
rope, while the mansions erected there
en- are famous for their beauty and
costliness. There are two city homes
of the Ryans. one at No. 60, Fifth Ave-
nue., New York City, and the other on
the corner of Eighteenth and streets
In Washington City.
Has Home in Washington.
The Washington home Is essentially
Mrs. Ryan's. since she purchased II
herself and lives there for almost five
months every year. alone. Mr.. Ryar
rarely has time to spend more than 8
few days away from New York during
the busy winter season. Mrs. Ryar
was fond of coming to Washington
when her boys were at school at the
Georgetown College. Four years ago
when the trustees of the Harriet Lane
Johnston estate put on the market the
stately mansion which long has beer
her home, Mrs. Ryan at once CLOSED
negotiations and purchased the place
within a few hours after her first in,
srection.
This home had been, in the lifetime
OF Mrs. Johnston, mistress of the White
House during the term of the only
bachelor president, James Buchanan. {
radiating point of social life. Mrs
Johnston loved to gather the old allie:
o. President Buchanan around her, anc
! she dispensed to the end Of her lont
life royal hospitality. But under thu
regime of Mrs Ryan, this mansion ha'
q dropped out Of the social reckoning
and, although it is equipped as hand
somely as when Mrs. Johnston presid
ed over its destinies. only few o
the most intimate friends of Mrs. Ry'
an are received, and her infrequen
4 ~ Zoo