Nixon"s grandfather, Doctor Washington Ryer, was a New York doctor who settled in Stockton, California in the 1840s after serving as an assistant surgeon in General Winfield Scott"s campaign in the Mexican-American War. He married Mary Fletcher of Boston in 1862, and they had one son, Fletcher Ryer. Ryer Island in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is named in their honor.
Fletcher and his wife, Blanche, became wealthy pioneer agriculturalists.
Nixon"s grandfather, Doctor In 1906 she was attending a school in Paris, France. Debutante Fletcher Ryer died in 1911, before reaching age fifty. As Doris reached her early twenties, she and her mother became increasingly involved in the social scenes on the east coast, taking Benjamin Thaw"s "cottage" in Newport, Rhode Island, for the summer of 1915.
She was formally presented as a debutante in Newport that year.
Marriage and family Civic leadership The AWVS was a key organization for coordinating volunteer activities in support of the war effort. She had founded the California chapter, and had served as its first president
In June 1947 she and 119 other civic leaders signed a letter urging Congress to immediately adopt legislation providing for universal military training. Death Nixon died in her home in San Francisco on June 24, 1948, at age fifty-four.
She left an estate valued at approximately $750,000, which included a half interest in a 6,600-acre (27 km2) ranch on Ryer Island.
Her son, Lewis Nixon III, was then serving as an officer in the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of it with Easy Company. His service with Easy Company would bring him fame after his 1995 death, when the Company became the subject of the acclaimed 2001 television mini-series "Band of Brothers" based on the Stephen Ambrose book
As the Oakland Tribune would write, "Mistress Ryer has had her eye on several members of the British aristocracy for Doris, but this cruel war, of course, smashed all of her well-laid plans to smithereens." (Her mother would later marry Clifford Erskine-Bolst, a British Conservative Party politician (who was elected to the British House of Commons in 1923 and again in 1931)
She also served as a member of the World Affairs Council and numerous organizations devoted to peace.
