Karen Marie Ryan, 99

Karen Marie (Rasmussen) Ryan, a longtime past resident of Wallace, passed away on December 18, 2018 at the age of 99. She was born on January 30, 1919 near Konstad, Denmark outside of Copenhagen. She was the second oldest of seven children and grew up on a dairy farm. She was preceded in death by all of her siblings, but has many relatives still in Denmark.

She earned her high school diploma in 1940 and completed a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing from the University of Copenhagen in 1944. During the WWII Nazi occupation of Denmark, and while working as an aide and nurse in Copenhagen, Karen assisted in transporting Danish Jews to neutral Sweden, thereby preventing them from being arrested and transferred to Nazi concentration camps and probable death. By these actions, the Danish people saved over 90% of their Jewish population, and Karen was a part of that remarkable achievement.

Beginning in 1950 Karen embarked on an international teaching tour of hospitals sharing her knowledge of emergency room triage which she had acquired during the war. She studied and worked as a nurse instructor in Rio de Janeiro, Boston, Chicago, and Denver. During her time in Boston in the early 1950’s, Karen worked and instructed at Massachusetts General Hospital and was also a nursing instructor at Boston University. Nearly forty years later, on a return visit to Boston, Karen was excited to learn that Massachusetts General Hospital still had her employment records on file!

Ultimately her nursing and teaching tour brought her to a hospital in Denver, Colorado. Karen was thrilled by the mountains of Colorado because as a young women, she had spent a lot of time visiting and hiking the Austrian Alps, and naturally, the high country of Colorado was very alluring to her. And so it came to pass that during a visit to Leadville, Colorado, Karen met her future husband, Michael Ryan who was an assayer for the ASARCO mining company, and who’s passion was hiking the high mountains around Leadville, and fishing the alpine lakes.

They were married on November 6, 1955 and had three children: Ellen, Louisa, and John. Mike’s frequent job transfers with ASARCO moved the family from Leadville to Tucson to Colville, Washington, and finally arriving in Wallace, Idaho the summer of 1967. Karen worked as a Registered Nurse for a brief period at the Providence Hospital in Wallace, and then for many years at East Shoshone Hospital in Silverton where she was a well-known charge nurse. She was an active member of St. Alphonsus Catholic Church and enjoyed traveling, bridge playing and the great outdoors. Mike preceded her in death in 1982.

Karen was a lifetime learner and her passion was helping and caring for her patients. She was always ready to learn more about her profession and even late in her career, she would willingly travel to all corners of the world attending nurse’s conventions to learn and share ideas with others. Although Karen officially “retired” from East Shoshone Hospital in Silverton in 1984, she continued to work there on a part-time basis for an additional ten years.

Throughout her lifetime she was an avid traveler. As a young woman she covered most of the continent of Europe including a visit to Berlin during the 1936 Olympics (her and friends rode bicycles from Copenhagen to Berlin to be there), Later in life she made memorable trips to Alaska, Italy, Israel, Egypt, South Korea, the mainland of China, and Hong Kong. In 2002, Karen moved to Modesto, CA to be closer to her daughter, Ellen and her family.

She went home to be with the Lord on December 18, 2018, just five weeks short of her 100th birthday. She is survived by her daughter Ellen Boley (husband Dave), daughter Louisa Clark, and son John, her grandchildren, Nathan, Annette, Steve, Clifford, John, Karen and Patrick, and her great-grandchildren.

Karen will be long remembered as a loving and compassionate mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, friend, dedicated nurse, and patron of countless patients.

Funeral services will be held on Thursday January 3, 2019, at St. Alphonsus Church followed by burial services at Shoshone Memorial Gardens in Kingston.