She also served as the second lady of the United States from to when her husband was vice president. She paid for her schooling by working multiple jobs, including pharmacy manager, typist, radiographer, and retail clerk. In , she married lawyer Richard Nixon and they had two daughters, Tricia and Julie.
Dubbed the "Nixon team", Richard and Pat Nixon campaigned together in his successful congressional campaigns of and Richard Nixon was elected vice president in alongside General Dwight D. Eisenhower , whereupon Pat became second lady.
Pat Nixon did much to add substance to the role, insisting on visiting schools, orphanages, hospitals, and village markets as she undertook many missions of goodwill across the world. As first lady, Pat Nixon promoted a number of charitable causes, including volunteerism. She oversaw the collection of more than pieces of historic art and furnishings for the White House , an acquisition larger than that of any other administration.
She was the most traveled first lady in U. She accompanied the president as the first first lady to visit China and the Soviet Union, and was the first president's wife to be officially designated a representative of the United States on her solo trips to Africa and South America, which gained her recognition as "Madame Ambassador"; she was also the first first lady to enter a combat zone. Though her husband was re-elected in a landslide victory in , her tenure as first lady ended two years later, when President Nixon resigned amid the Watergate scandal.
Her public appearances became increasingly rare later in life. She suffered two strokes, one in and another in , and was diagnosed with lung cancer in She died in , aged Thelma Catherine Ryan was born in in the small mining town of Ely, Nevada. Ryan Sr. After her birth, the Ryan family moved to California, and in settled on a small truck farm in Artesia present-day Cerritos.
