The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Children on 25 Words or Less

by TerryRyan (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2004

  $3.25

  The heroine of this nostalgic, moving and sweetly funny memoir is Evelyn Ryan - the author's mother - who supports her ten children and unhelpful husband by winning competitions. Terry Ryan recounts with warmth and love how her mom wrote rhymes, completed sentences and composed promotional poems at the ironing board, making sure the family never went without in small town 50s America. But as Terry Ryan's father sunk further and further into violent alcoholism, and secretly took out a second mortgage on their home, plunging the family into eviction threats and empty cupboards, Evelyn's competing took on a more desperate tone. The success of her rhymes were now essential if the Ryan family were to survive together. Truly inspirational, funnier and more heartwarming than fiction The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio is a wonderful tribute to a mother who raised her children with love, spirit and happiness against all the odds.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2001

  $7.39

• New

  Paperback
  2002

  $20.48

  The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio introduces Evelyn Ryan, an enterprising woman who kept poverty at bay with wit, poetry, and perfect prose during the contest era of the 1950s and 1960s. Evelyn's winning ways defied the church, her alcoholic husband, and antiquated views of housewives. To her, flouting convention was a small price to pay when it came to raising her six sons and four daughters. Graced with a rare appreciation for life's inherent hilarity, Evelyn turned every financial challenge into an opportunity for fun and profit. The story of this irrepressible woman, whose clever entries are worthy of Erma Bombeck, Dorothy Parker, and Ogden Nash, is told by her daughter Terry with an infectious joy that shows how a winning spirit will always triumph over poverty.