The Luck of the Irish

Thelma Catherine Patricia Ryan is a very Irish name, and she had the red-hair to go with it. Born March 16, 1912, the day before St. Patrick’s Day, in Ely, Nevada, her parents moved to Cerritos, California, when she was a child. After high school, she worked her way through the University of Southern California, taught at Whittier High School, and then married the lawyer Richard M. Nixon.

Patricia is the feminine form of Patrick, the name of the English missionary who introduced Christianity and the Catholic Church into Ireland in the late fifth century. The Scots have St. Andrew, the En...