The holidays are often difficult, especially when you are recently divorced or separated. I just finished a book about a widow and her first year in widowhood and the feelings are just not the same. The best way to get through the holidays, I think, is to spend them with family and friends who are loving, not judgmental. Also, you might go to some funny movies or read a book that lifts your spirits. Such a book is The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio by Terry Ryan, whose memoir about her mother Evelyn Ryan is funny and sad, motivational and uplifting, entertaining and educational.
Because I love rhymes and jingles, this book was especially enjoyable to me. Even if there were no rhymes, this book is a winner. The core of the book is Evelyn Ryan, an energetic, resouceful mother raising 10 children in the 1950s-1960s. (Everything was also familiar to me, since that was when I was growing up. The oldest child is my age.) The subtitle is a good clue: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less.
Even though Evelyn Ryan was married, her husband was an alcoholic who spent most of his paycheck on liquor, so Evelyn basically raised the kids as a single parent. In fact, she probably would have been better off if she had been single, since her husband put their homes in jeopardy because of his spending habits. (He redeemed himself somewhat at his death,leaving a $60,000 legacy that Evelyn kept for her children.)
To keep the family afloat, Evelyn Ryan wrote jingles and last lines for brand name products, radio stations, or motherhood that those of us from the 40s and 50s may relate to or remember. For example, she wrote this rhyme for CBS Radio that won her only $1.00, not for a product, but for a state of being as a mother with kids:
Lawn Time No See
When I survey
My barren plot…
Long stamping ground
For tyke and tot
I must conclude
It’s clear (alas!)
One cannot grow
Both kids and grass!
This one is for Dial soap:
Dial is wonderful, colorful stuff!
For amplest protection, Dial’s always enough!
However, Evelyn Ryan was a bright mother with a background in writing and knew one entry might not be enough to win, so she would enter many, many times, using different versions of her name or even one of her children’s names. She wrote 11 or 12 rhymes for Dial soap, keeping all her entires in notebooks that she saved. (They became a primary source of information when Terry wrote the book, with input from her siblings.)
While Evelyn earned only a few dollars for many of her entries, she won BIG several times. She once won $5,000 that kept her from losing her first house, and the last big win of two weeks in Switzerland, a car, and almost $4,000 kept her from losing her second house, which her husband had remortgaged and neglected to repay on the loan.
What is most important about this book is not the funny and clever rhymes, but about Evelyn’s unflagging optimism and commitment to raise her children the only way she knew how, with her wits! She did not drive, did not go to college, and could not work with 10 children at home. She used her intelligence (graduated valedictorian from high school) and background in writing a column in her step-grandmother’s newspaper to churn out jingles, ends of rhymes, and short stories that kept the family sometimes only days from poverty’s door.
Except Evelyn never had a poverty mentality. She had a winner’s mentality, always entering contests and even influencing her children so that they also entered contests and won. And after she joined a group of other women who were also contesters, her support from them gave her even more incentive and tips to winning more contests.
The book is written by sixth child Terry Ryan, whose writing style brings this book alive, making it funny as well as realistic, introducing Evelyn Ryan to us so that we know her. Incidentally, it was made into a movie with Julianna Moore (on the cover above), but I have not been able to get it yet. I do want to see it, because the author was consulted on the film, making me believe it will reflect the true story of this miraculous mother.
Since today is Christmas, I thought I would end with a jungle Evelyn Ryan wrote just as a way of expressing herself, which she often did. (Not all her jungles went for contests, but just for letting off steam. I can relate to that!)
In the Red
An old Christmas custom
too strong to resist:
You run out of money
but not out of list.
I love this book! It is a testimony to ingenuity, positive thinking, and survival! When you are feeling low about your situation, read this book and be inspired. The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio is published by Simon & Schuster and costs$13.00. (I bought mine used for $3.99 from Amazon.com). I think the original copy I took from the library had a different cover, since the book was published in 2001 and this cover is from 2005.
Amnesty International is directly involved with human rights. The article on my website, 
