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Mary, the graduate. ca. 1915
Yukon Archives: 91/112 #698 PHO 607
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Mary’s life before Claude
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Life before Claude
Mary and Mark, ca. 1900. Mark was also known to his siblings as “Bud.”
Yukon Archives: 91/112 #703
Mary, her twin brother and two sisters grew up on a small farm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Their father, Reverend John K. Ryder, a minister with the Reformed Mennonite Church there, died the year after Mary and Claude married. Elizabeth Ryder, Mary’s mother, lived until 1961.
Mary demonstrated an adventurous spirit and an eagerness to help others early on. After completing nursing training, she was one of several Lancaster nurses who volunteered to serve in Japan after the terrible earthquake there of September 1923. She traveled to California to be closer to Japan when the call came. However, the quota of 
Elizabeth (Honey), Mary, Mark and Anna. ca. 1914.
Yukon Archives: 91/112 #699
nurses had already been filled and she found herself working in a hospital in Fresno for a long and frustrating year. “As you know California life is very complex. I was tired of it. I felt even before I thought of Alaska that I needed sometimes to get back or go on to a place where there was a finer spirit – where people weren’t so selfish and where there was greater need. Where the sum of values didn’t stress the almighty dollar so appallingly….”
“First Aid.” This photo of Mary with the family dog, Bill, reflects the love for animals she displayed throughout her life.
Yukon Archives: 91/112 #714
Mary applied for a posting to China, but another opportunity came her way: a position in an Episcopal mission hospital, hundreds of kilometres from civilization, in a tiny community called Fort Yukon above the Arctic Circle. In order to reach the new posting before the river froze she had to rush to prepare herself. Shopping for cold-weather clothing in Fresno in July was no easy task!
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