Sketch by Kathleen Ryan

With next week being Valentine’s Day we wanted to share this archival tale of love. We stumbled across this wonderful drawing in the March 4, 1924 issue of the Queen’s Journal. After doing a bit of research, we realized that this drawing was done by our benefactor, Kathleen Ryan (neé Whitton), back when she was a student at Queen’s. To our delight, once we saw their yearbook photos we also realized that the drawing was of her and her eventual husband Sylvester Frank Ryan. We like to think this drawing gives us some insight into their romance: that perhaps their love blossomed while researching material in the Archives. And maybe, just maybe, that’s one of the reasons why Kathleen Ryan decided to help fund the renovation of the New Medical Building to house Queen’s University Archives in 1981.