Bio-Sawyers
SURNAMES:  SHORT, LANHAM,

 An experienced, successful rancher whose long years of arduous, intelligent labor have enabled him at last to retire in comfort. enjoying the confidence and esteem of all who know him, is George W. Ryan, a native of Bethel, Claremont County, Ohio, where he was born on May 10. 1852. His father, Patrick Ryan. was a native of Ireland, who came to the United States when a mere boy; he was a wagon-maker by trade, and he married Miss Ann Erwin, a devoted wife and an affectionate mother. Both died there.

George W. attended the grammar school at Bethel, learned telegraphing, became an operator and a station agent on the Wabash Railway, and afterwards studied at Oberlin College. At the age of nineteen he went to Shelby County, Illinois, and near Windsor he commenced farming. He raised excellent corn and stock, and continued there for eight years. In 1882 he moved to Pembina, Dakota Territory, and there he owned a farm but engaged in the banking business, continuing altogether eighteen years. and established banks at Crystal and Cavalier in Dakota and Hallock, Minnesota. In 1884 he moved to Spink County. now in South Dakota. and there he homesteaded land, proved up on it. and returned to Pembina. In the eighteen years in which our subject remained in Dakota, he acquired several thousand acres of land, which he devoted to grain and flax. There. too, he reared his family.

In 1900 he sold out and came to California. and for six years he lived in the Sacramento Valley. In 1906 he removed to San Jose. and he has lived here ever since, engaging in the real estate, insurance, and loaning business until 1920. He owns 235 acres in Placer County, Cal.. a ranch devoted to plums, pears, peaches and grapes. He also is interested in about 600 acres at Atwater devoted to peaches, almonds, pears, and apricots. Both of his ranches are well irrigated.

At Fairmount, Ill., on December 1. 1881, Mr. Ryan was married to Miss Mary Short. a native of that place and the daughter of Thomas and Virginia  (Lanham) Short. She is a lineal descendant of the old Short family of Virginia, and is also related to the Lanhams. She was educated in the schools of Illinois, and has assisted in the education of three children of her own. Fred S. is a well-known physician of San Jose, in the enjoyment of a large and constantly increasing practice. Clarissa Maud is at home, as is also Margaret. C. Ryan.

Mr. Ryan is a Royal Arch Mason. He has today one of the finest homes of San Jose; but the reader will regret to learn that in 1920 he suffered a paralytic stroke which has made it difficult for him to get about—a severe trial to ,one for so many years so active and industrious, and always so considerate of and attentive to the wants of others.

from Eugene T. Sawyers' History of Santa Clara County,California,  published by Historic Record Co. , 1922  page 1443

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