Valerie P. Ryan

Valerie Patricia Ryan, a lifelong resident of Madison, died peacefully under Hospice care on July 15th, a few days short of her 104th birthday. In 1923 her parents built the home on Neptune Avenue that would become her main residence after they died, and she made sure that her home remained the center for family gatherings every summer.

Valerie was born on 28 July 1922 in Brooklyn, N.Y., to Dr. Lorne McDonnell Ryan and Valerie Thomasina Britton. She and two older brothers, Allan and Edward, spent every summer in Madison, playing on the beach and canoeing offshore, while her father commuted to his medical practice in the city. After graduating from Brooklyn’s Parker Collegiate Institute in 1940, she briefly modeled in New York and served as an Arthur Murray dance instructor, before employment as a typist at the Aetna Life Insurance Co. in Hartford from 1941-1943.

By then her older brother Edward was already on his way to become a Lt. Commander in the U.S. Navy and encouraged Valerie to enlist in the WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service) as a pharmacist mate. While stationed at the at the Commander-in-Chief’s Dispensary in Washington, DC, from 1943-1946 she would rise to become Chief Pharmacist Mate. Her wartime duties included serving as a medical assistant to Admiral Ernest J. King’s (Chief of Naval Operations) doctor, making her the only corpsman on duty in this Top Secret area. Stories about mingling with these important officers and the Hollywood stars who passed through her office were a staple of later family get-togethers.

After the war she followed in her father’s and oldest brother Allan’s footsteps into the medical profession, and despite her father’s warning was that she was“ too flighty” to serve as a nurse, she spent the next 18 years in that profession, earning along the way a “Best Bedside Nurse” award. In 1951 she became a registered nurse and from 1951-1954 was an instructor for clerical nursing students at the Philadelphia General Hospital. In 1954 she moved back to Madison to be with her widowed mother, now living there full time. Over the next decade she worked at Saint Raphael’s and Yale hospitals in New Haven, mostly in the delivery room and newborn unit.

Deciding it was time for a change, Valerie switched to teaching after earning a BS in Education at Southern Connecticut State College in 1964, an MS in 1968, and a Sixth Year Certificate at the University of Connecticut in 1971. She pursued her second calling as a third grade teacher at Westbrook Elementary School from 1965 until retiring at age 61 in 1983. To keep busy and supplement her retirement income she then worked at Ben Franklin’s and Jolly’s drug store in Madison, where she had many adventures, including being on duty during a robbery.

Her retirement also opened up a new chapter in her life: ballroom dancing and constructing life-sized puppets. She inherited her desire to dance from her mother who rolled back the carpet in their New York apartment to give Valerie and her brothers dancing instruction. Having filled her room with images of ballet dancers as a youth and a lover of Fred Astaire movies, she signed up at Madison’s Gunnar Johnson’s School of Dancing at age 66 and immediately discovered that ballroom dancing to be her true calling. Between 1968 and 2004 she went to 60 competitions from Canada to Florida, bringing home 480 first prizes for her age group. She even made a full-sized Fred Astaire puppet that she strapped onto her feet and danced with, the “duo” even garnering a couple of medals. More importantly, Valerie found a new family among the dance students and loved every minute she spent on the dance floor.

Somehow, she still found the time to make puppets of all shapes and sizes, combining her artistic talent with skills honed over years spent as a teacher. Her third grade classes put on annual puppet shows, including one for the local PBS station. For many years, her life sized puppets decorated the sidewalk as part of Madison’s Halloween competition. As she became more arthritic, she involved her many friends in helping in this work of love. For many years, she also became a fixture serving as Grand Marshall of the annual July 4th parade, when dressed in her WAVE uniform, she rode in a 1941 World War II Jeep leading the way for the other participants, and surely an inspiration for all to be brave enough to match the adventurous and exciting life that spanned her more than a century. To her family and friends, she was not the typical maiden aunt but was a beautiful, fun, vivacious and feisty spirit.

Valerie is survived by her niece Cordelia Ryan Chamberlin (sons Ryan Garms and Edward Chamberlin), niece-in-law Jane O’Connor Ryan (daughters Alana and Margaret Ryan), nephew Robert (daughter Julie Miller and son Brandon Ryan), and great nieces Amanda Ngai and Melissa Bachman and her care givers and many friends including Roseann Nigretti.