Pat Nixon

==Early life==
Thelma Catherine Ryan was born in 1912 in the small mining town of [[Ely, Nevada]].<ref name="First Lady Pat Nixon">{{cite web|url= http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=38|title= First Lady Biography: Pat Nixon|access-date= August 15, 2007|year= 2005|publisher= The National First Ladies Library|archive-date= May 9, 2012|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120509084238/http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=38|url-status= dead}}</ref> Her father, William M. Ryan Sr., was a sailor, gold miner, and [[market gardening|truck farmer]] of Irish ancestry; her mother, Katherine Halberstadt, was a German immigrant.<ref name="First Lady Pat Nixon"/> The nickname "Pat" was given to her by her father, because of her birth on the day before [[Saint Patrick's Day]] and her Irish ancestry.<ref name="First Lady Pat Nixon"/> When she enrolled in college in 1931 she started using the name "Pat" (and occasionally "Patricia") instead of "Thelma" but she did not legally change her name.<ref>{{cite news|author=Halloran, Richard|title=First Lady of the Land at 60: Thelma Catherine Ryan Nixon, Woman in the News|work=The New York Times|date=March 16, 1972}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|author=Kinnard, Judith M.|title=Thelma Ryan's Rise: From White Frame to White House|work=The New York Times|date=August 20, 1971}}</ref>

After her birth, the Ryan family moved to California, and in 1914 settled on a small [[truck farm]] in [[Artesia, California|Artesia]] (present-day [[Cerritos, California|Cerritos]]).<ref>{{cite news|title=First Lady Hailed on Return 'Home'|work=The New York Times|date=September 6, 1969|page=18}}</ref> Thelma Ryan's high school yearbook page gives her nickname as "Buddy" and her ambition to run a boarding house.<ref>Illustration in a ''New York Times'' article by Judith M. Kinnard, entitled "Thelma Ryan's Rise: From White Frame to White House" (August 20, 1971).</ref>

She worked on the family farm and also at a local bank as a janitor and bookkeeper. Her mother died of cancer in 1924.<ref name="nyt-obit">{{cite news|title=Pat Nixon, Former First Lady, Dies at 81|work=The New York Times|date=July 23, 1993|page=D22|access-date=November 9, 2007|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE5D7113AF930A15755C0A965958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2|archive-date=September 21, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230921120101/https://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/23/obituaries/pat-nixon-former-first-lady-dies-at-81.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2|url-status=live}}</ref> Pat, who was only 12, assumed all the household duties for her father (who died himself of [[silicosis]] 5 years later) and her two older brothers, William Jr. (1910–1997) and Thomas (1911–1992). She also had a half-sister, Neva Bender (1909–1981), and a half-brother, Matthew Bender (1907–1973), from her mother's first marriage;<ref name="First Lady Pat Nixon"/> her mother's first husband had died during a [[flash flood]] in South Dakota.<ref name="First Lady Pat Nixon"/>