My name is Susan McMillan Renzo, and I am the daughter of Wallace McMillan and Rita McCormick.a
I am in tears right now, seeing that you have done what I could not do: locate Catherine Ryan's past!!
My father was married to Catherine Ryan, They had two sons, Daniel Angus McMillan II (named for my father's father) and James Wallace McMillan.
Daniel married Charlotte Odell, and they had five children, two daughters and three sons. Both Dan and Charlotte are deceased, Charlotte only a few months ago..
James was married, had a son, then divorced. He relocated to CA, where he was with a woman with five children. It isn't clear to me whether they ever married. James died many years ago.
Several years after the death of Catherine (which I understood to be by suicide, related to a painful bone disease) Wallace married Rita McCormick. They had 8 children; 4 daughters and 4 sons. I am the oldest of the 8.
My father died at age 61, in December 1968. At that time, my mother was 43 (she, too, is deceased), I was 13 and the youngest siblings, twin boys, were 4. My mother never remarried, raised us all by herself.
Catherine Ryan did not have a social security number. Back in the 1940s, early 1950s they were not required. I have their tax returns from that time, and while she and the boys are listed, none of them had a number. Perhaps it was a citizenship issue: I don't know what her immigration status was. She may well have been a registered alien. Also, I believe that her death was in Pelham, NY, which is located just outside of New York City. However, it might also have been in Glenham, NY. I know they owned homes at different times in both locations, but I don't know the timing.
I have a picture in my family tree of Wallace and Catherine and an unidentified woman sitting around a table playing cards in my family tree. It is the only one I was ever able to locate.
I am so grateful to all of you who worked together to gain this information. I tried so hard to include it in the book I created in memory of my father in what would have been his centennial year, 2007. I just couldn't pierce the veil of so many years.
I would be happy to fill in any other blanks I am able to.