E. J. Ryan, a successful grocery man of Dixon, has been engaged in business in this city in his present line since the 13th of March, 1885, and has met with prosperity in his undertakings. He keeps a first-class sotre, complete in all its appointments, and from the beginning his trade has rapidly increased until he now has a large paying patronage. In order to enlarge his facilities, he has just built a new storeroom on Hennepin Avenue that is conveniently arranged and will be opened as a first-class grocery store soon. By courteous treatment of his customers and fair and honest dealing, he has worked up the excellent trae which he now received and which he justly merits.

Mr. Ryan claims Connecticut as the State of his nativity, his birth having occurred in Torrington,. Litchfield County, on the 15th of July, 1846. His parents, Philip and Anastacia (Londergon) Ryan, were natives of the Emerald Isle, born in County Tipperary, where their marriage was celebrated and where they became parents of four children, all having been born in this country. On emigrating to America, they located in Connecticut, and their last days were spent in Norfolk, where the father died at the age of eighty-four years and the mother in the sixty-seventh year of her age. Both were active members of the Roman Catholic Church. Five of their children are yet living, two sons and three daughters. Three of their sons wore the blue during the late war. Our subject enlisted in the one-hundred-day service as a member of Company K, Eighth Massachusetts Infantry, and John was also in the one-hundred-day service. Another brother, Timothy, who was an attorney at law by profession, served his country as an Orderly-Sergeant and laid down his life for the Union. He now sleeps on Southern soil.

Mr. Ryan, the subject of this notice, when a youth began working in the hosiery factory in Massachusetts, where he learned the business and was employed in that line for some years. He then determined to seek a home in the West, and prior to coming to Dixon had resided for some time in St. Joseph, Mich., being connected with the firm of Cooper, Wells & Co., hosiery manufacturers as manager of the yarn department. His Previous training had well fitted him for the position and he was a trusted employe of time firm for some years.

On the 17th of June, 1884, Mr. Ryan led to the marriage altar Miss Mary Kronewitter, their union being celebrated in Mishawaka, Ind., her native city. Her parents, Nicholas and Margaret (Winekauf) Kronewitter, still reside in that place. They are both natives of Bavaria, Germany, where they resided until after their marriage when they crossed the Atlantic and took up their residence in St. Joseph County, Ind. With the Roman Catholic Church both Mr. and Mrs. Kronewjtter hold membership and Mr. and Mrs. Ryan are Prominent members of the church of that denomination in Dixon. Unto them were born two children but both died in infancy. At local election, Mr. Ryan is independent, voting for the man whom he thinks best qualified, but on national questions he supports Democratic principles. Although numbered among the comparatively late arrivals in Dixon, he and his wife have won many warm friends in this locality and are held in high respect by all who know them.

Portraits and Biographical Lee County IL

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