Gail Ryan

Gail Ryan passed away June 28th at home in Kansas City, MO, surrounded by family & loved ones, after a short illness.

Born in 1943 in Del Rapids, South Dakota, Gail was the second child to Dave & Dorothy Gilliland, following her older sister Marilyn. Brother Alan & sister Jean were soon to follow. She spent her childhood years in the upper Midwest in South Dakota and Iowa among a close extended family.

Education was part of the family DNA, and Gail spent her career in teaching and school counseling. A strong independent streak was also part of the family makeup, and upon graduating college, Gail found her way out West, where she would spend most of her life. Both she and her sister Jean took teaching jobs in the rural mountain west in the 1960s and combined their educational work during those years with an adventurous travel schedule including to parts of Eastern Europe, then still part of the Soviet Union. Gail worked for a spell in Elko, Nevada before moving to the Salt Lake area in Utah. There she would meet and marry John Ryan, a union that would continue until he passed more than 40 years later.

The new couple would quickly add two children to their family, with Shannon born in 1973 and Andy in 1974. Soon, the family made the move to Phoenix, where John worked in mining and construction engineering and Gail worked as a high school teacher and guidance counselor for many years. Their children remember Gail and John’s large circle of friends during these years fondly, with the house often full for bridge parties for the adults, pool gatherings for the kids, and sunny Phoenix Christmas morning celebrations for everyone.

Once the kids were off to college and as John retired, Gail & John moved to Port Townsend, WA in 1994. Port Townsend had been part of the family’s life for many years, with Gail’s sister Jean paving the way to the small seaside port town on the Olympic Peninsula in the 1980s and Gail and Jean’s parents joining Jean a few years after that. Eventually, Gail’s sister Marilyn & her husband Jim followed suit and joined the family in Port Townsend.

Family was everything to Gail, and the extended Gilliland family made frequent Summer & Holiday trips to join together in WA, where everyone would gather & play ridiculously competitive bouts of croquet, Pinochle and board games. She was an incredibly caring and supportive mother and gave her children unconditional love in all circumstances other than at the board game table, where she was without mercy.

One lifelong passion of Gail’s was books. She was never without a pile of library books by her chair and an early fond memory of her kids’ was trips to the local Phoenix branch in the long summers, followed by a visit to the Hostess outlet. She read a wide variety of genre fiction with a penchant for both steamy bodice rippers and cozy mysteries, and read quickly, often a book a day or more in retirement. She also loved gardening and she and John spent several years in Port Townsend in an escalating war of deterrence with the town deer (the deer won and gardening then moved to the deck).

Gail had theoretically retired as well when they moved to Port Townsend, but she continued on as the local middle school’s go-to substitute teacher for 25 more years, until COVID-19. She was a beloved teacher in the local community, and she was frequently stopped on the street & in the grocery store by former students to catch up, which she enjoyed greatly.

She spent many of her later years caregiving for multiple family members, including her husband John who passed away in 2016 and ending with her dear sister Jean who passed away in 2024. Following Jean’s passing, Gail moved to Kansas City, where she lived a few doors down from her son Andy and his wife Ky and they were able to look in on her every day. Gail passed after a short illness, at home as she wanted and with her family around her.