Evelyn Ryan

Last updated February 05, 2025

Evelyn Ryan was an Ohio poet and jingle and slogan writer. A 2005 movie, The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio , was made about her life.

Early life and education

Evelyn Lehman Ryan was born in Sherwood, Ohio, to Orren and Minnie Lehman; Minnie died soon after giving birth, and Orren sent Ryan and her older sister to live with relatives.^[1] She spent her first three years living with an aunt and uncle.^[2]^[1] She graduated from Sherwood High School in 1931 as valedictorian.^[2] She started nursing school, but chronic eczema prevented her from continuing.^[1]

Career

Ryan worked as a typesetter and then a columnist at the Sherwood Chronicle, which was published by her step-grandmother, Josephine Etchie.^[2]

Ryan was mother of ten and a housewife.^[2] She began entering contests in the late 1940s, starting with Burma-Shave rhymes, and regularly won prizes such as watches, kitchen appliances, and in one instance an entire case of candy bars.^[1] She often made multiple submissions under slightly different names.^[1]

From 1953 to 1965, to support her family she entered contests for writers which in the US in the 1950s and 1960s were created by large commercial products companies as a promotional tool.^[3]^[2] In 1953, while she was pregnant with her tenth child, the family was being evicted from a two-bedroom house they were renting, and Ryan won enough for the down payment on a four-bedroom house.^[4]^[2] In 1965, facing foreclosure after her husband had taken a second mortgage on the house without telling her, she won $3,440.64, a Ford Mustang, a trip to Switzerland and two watches, some of which she used to pay off the second mortgage.^[3]^[5] Ryan also sold poetry and other writing to newspapers, magazines, and radio shows.^[1]

Corporations changed to sweepstakes promotions, and Ryan went to work for J.C. Penney as a sales clerk, working there until she retired in 1983.^[2]

Book and movie

Her daughter, Terry Ryan, wrote a 2001 book, The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less, which was made into a 2005 movie, The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio.^[3]^[4]

Personal life

Ryan married Leo “Kelly” Ryan, a machinist, in 1936.^[2] She was widowed in 1983.^[2] She died August 29, 1998.^[1]^[3]

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References

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Ryan, Terry (2005). The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less. Suze Orman. Riverside: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-7393-0.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Weiss, Mitch; Murphy, Steve (1 April 2001). "Prizewinner, breadwinner". The Blade . Archived from the original on 7 July 2024. Retrieved 3 February 2025.
1 2 3 4 Witchel, Alex (12 April 2001). "Fighting Eviction With a Jackpot of Jingles". The New York Times . ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 26 February 2021. Retrieved 3 February 2025.
1 2 Elliot, Debbie (29 January 2006). "Reviving the Tale of a Prizewinning Mom". NPR . Archived from the original on 25 May 2023. Retrieved 3 February 2025.
↑ McLellan, Dennis (21 May 2007). "Terry Ryan, 60; wrote bestseller 'The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio'". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 3 February 2025.

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[Ryan-2005-1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Ryan, Terry (2005). The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less. Suze Orman. Riverside: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-7393-0.

[Weiss-2001-2] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Weiss, Mitch; Murphy, Steve (1 April 2001). "Prizewinner, breadwinner". The Blade . Archived from the original on 7 July 2024. Retrieved 3 February 2025.

[Witchel-2001-3] 1 2 3 4 Witchel, Alex (12 April 2001). "Fighting Eviction With a Jackpot of Jingles". The New York Times . ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 26 February 2021. Retrieved 3 February 2025.

[Elliot-2006-4] 1 2 Elliot, Debbie (29 January 2006). "Reviving the Tale of a Prizewinning Mom". NPR . Archived from the original on 25 May 2023. Retrieved 3 February 2025.

[5] McLellan, Dennis (21 May 2007). "Terry Ryan, 60; wrote bestseller 'The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio'". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 3 February 2025.

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