Farewell Old Friend

By JULIE BERRY TRAYNOR

Cleaver Guest Writer

I need to fall back into my old columnist mode this week and remember some things about my old friend and proud Harrison native Patricia Ryan, who left us March 29 in Traverse City. 

Patty Ryan was the daughter of Stan and Eunice Ryan. She was an HHS grad with the class of 1968, and the older sister of the late and well-remembered Dan Ryan, a lifelong Harrison resident.  Pat was a member of the first class attending the newly minted Mid Michigan Community College in the lower level of the Clare County Building, and that is where we met on day one of Mid.

As at all colleges, the fall class was for the most part a great gathering of recent high school seniors. We came from towns all around to attend this brand new college as freshmen all over again. We came for various different reasons and goals. For some it was an opportunity never thought available. Many students saw MMCC as the best way to get an early college education at a reasonable cost, which has always been one goal of such institutions, affordable education for all no matter your choice. And that it was and remains.

Our gathering of far-flung folks became friends or at least nodding acquaintances. In fact, for the most part, everyone likely knew everyone that first year. We got to know each other in class, at the student lounge over cards, or from the Golden Horseshoe Restaurant, a favorite hangout. It was really a small crowd. If one was fortunate, a lifelong friend or two came your way via Mid. Pat Ryan was one of mine. Everyone knew the very outgoing Pat Ryan, and she knew everyone. She was a Harrison local and a real presence at Mid. As a student worker in the young library, she was a very willing aide, searching above and beyond for student requests. She had the knack of giving clear and correct directions to anywhere and was always ready to pitch in and lend a hand to folks in need, never certain where it would take her. She never threw in the towel easily.

After two years Pat and I and 41 of our classmates were the first proud Mid Michigan Community College graduates at the Harrison campus in May of 1970. We both went on to Central Michigan University that fall, she to pursue a teaching career, and me one in journalism. At the end of our last year there, we shared the basement level of a tri-level family home just off campus. 

When we left CMU, I went to work in Lansing and Pat moved back to Harrison, ready to contemplate her future in education. Along came the opportunity to deliver mail for the USPS from the Harrison office. Pat went for it, memorizing vast quantities of names and roads to pass the test. She served as a rural carrier and before long moved to a part-time clerk position. She went for an upgrade with a transfer to a larger post office in the Traverse City zip code where she worked as a counter clerk until she retired in 2006, I believe. 

And although our lives took us in different directions, we always kept in touch: letters, postcards, and finally the much swifter email. My kids got wonderful Pat gifts and just a few years ago I received what would sadly be my last Pat-made afghan. We had the kind of friendship one has with friends who are family. We went years without seeing each other, but when we did the time fell away and it was like we had had lunch just last week. She was indeed family.

We both shared an interest in our family history and our ancestor’s stories were similar. In talking with Pat’s grandmother, the formidable Roxy Ryan, I joked that we were probably related somewhere along the line. She would agree. Years later, along came Ancestry to prove it. Our tie goes back to a common seventh great-grandfather and earlier Mayflower relatives.  

Pat Ryan was a good, loyal friend who touched a great many folks’ lives during the course of hers. Not only at her job as a postal clerk, but as a great daughter, sister, aunt, and loyal friend of many. She was my dear friend and distant cousin. Pat Ryan and I were together at Lake George when I met my future husband. And it was she who stood up with me when we were married in my parents’ living room, 49 years ago just this week. 

I am greatly aware of the hole she leaves in the universe. RIP, Patty.