Vulcan Krewe
“Can you imagine the mother of a 14-year-old letting her go into the Cities for Winter Carnival with those crazy men?”
Kitty Ryan asks the question and knows the answer. Her parents let the rural Goodhue teen leave home for 10 days in St. Paul with the Winter Carnival Vulcan Krewe.
Yes, Ryan left the farm to join that group of red-clad, masked, and grease-painted men, notorious for their shenanigans, during the 1952 Saint Paul Winter Carnival.
Now 86, the Stillwater resident is recognized as the only female to have been an official member of the Vulcans. She’s often called the Krewe’s “mascot,” but she’s listed as a member in the official Vulcan roster.
It was a different time, of course. Maybe Ryan’s parents didn’t know much about the Vulcans’ rascally reputation back then.
Or maybe they figured Ryan could take care of herself. After all, she got the gig because of her skill twirling a flaming baton.
The Vulcans never misbehaved around Ryan.
“They were wonderful,” she says. “It was like having seven dads.” One would always make sure she was safely in her room at the Saint Paul Hotel after each day’s festivities.
She admits she doesn’t know what mischief the Vulcans might have found after she was asleep.
Eventually, as she got older and life pressed on, the only female Vulcan disappeared. She was gone for more than half a century.
Kitty Ryan
In 2014, Winter Carnival super volunteer Tom Barrett was the lead Vulcan, Vulcanus Rex. One day, he got a call from a woman asking if the Vulcans could make an appearance at the Relay for Life cancer fundraiser she was organizing in Stillwater.
The group was already booked that day, Barrett told her.
Then the Stillwater woman mentioned, “I remember when I was with the Vulcans.”
Barrett asked if he was speaking to Kitty (Ryan) Johnson.
“You know my name?” she asked.
“Know your name? I have your picture here on my wall,” replied Barrett, who had been trying to track her down for years.
“I thought they forgot me,” Ryan says.
On fire, in demand
Back in 1952, Ryan was no stranger to solo trips from the family farm in Belle Creek Township to St. Paul. She’d been taking the bus to West St. Paul for dance and baton lessons from Ted Masio and Sally Loomis for three years before she joined the Krewe. Her mother would take her to catch the bus in Hader, Minnesota.
She went alone because her parents were busy. “When you’re on a farm, you’re needed 24/7,” she says. It was Loomis who suggested, “Why not try Kitty on the fire baton?”
“You know what?” Ryan says with a smile. “I never practiced.” After all, you couldn’t just fire up the baton to rehearse in the living room.
Ryan remembers she got a new powder blue outfit for the 1952 trip to St. Paul. And she got an official red Vulcan uniform to wear in parades and rides on the Vulcans’ official vehicle, a 1932 firetruck named Luverne. She didn’t spin her flaming baton during Winter Carnival parades, though. It just wasn’t safe, she says.
After the Stars and Stripes U.S. military newspaper ran a piece on Ryan with the Vulcans, she says she received a stack of love letters and eight wedding proposals. She was 15.
Her baton prowess goes far beyond her role in “The Coolest Celebration on Earth.” Ryan was drum majorette for her high school band for four years. Between the Vulcan gig and her marriage, she was also the drum majorette for the Schmidt Indians and Hamms Indians, marching and maneuvering parade corps in St. Paul, and other groups. She met her first husband, Carl Johnson, at a parade in Superior, Wisconsin. He played tenor drum with Stillwater Drum and Bugle Corps. She won many ribbons in competition and got roses at Rochester Dairy Day, she remembers.
Years after she packed away her parade hat and baton, the multitalented Ryan played the electric Hawaiian guitar in the Waikiki Room at the Nicollet Hotel in Minneapolis.
And her involvement in the Winter Carnival wasn’t limited to the Vulcans. In 1956, she was nominated by her boss at Brown & Bigelow in St. Paul to run for Aurora, Queen of the Snows. Ryan was engaged to Johnson at the time, and Carnival princesses had to be single back then. She refused to take off her engagement diamond for competition, so she was not eligible to wear the crown.
Vulcan Krewe
After they married, Ryan and Johnson raised six children in Stillwater. Did the family ever take in Winter Carnival festivities? No time. “You realize I had six children around?” she says.
The neighbor boy
Ryan had been a widow for nine years when she went to a funeral in her hometown and saw old friends, including cousins of the guy who lived on the adjacent farm while she was growing up.
Gene Ryan (same last name but no relation) was six years older and left the country school they attended at about the same time she started. “You were scared to death of those big guys in country school,” she says.
When she got a call from him after the funeral, Ryan says she didn’t recognize the name. She knew him as Eugene. His sisters had been her babysitters. He’d been a widower for two years.
“I made sure he knew I was never going to get married again,” Ryan says. But, alas, they’ve been married for almost nine years now. Ryan has 18 grandchildren and 28 great-grandchildren. Gene has two children from his first marriage, six grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.
Finding Kitty
Kitty Ryan
In 2014, Barrett assured Ryan over the phone that she hadn’t been forgotten.
He had her join the Vulcan Krewe for the University of Minnesota homecoming parade that year. “Back then, they babysat me,” Ryan says. “Today, I feel like I’m babysitting these guys.”
Of course, the Vulcans also canceled their other obligation to appear at Ryan’s 2014 Relay for Life.
In recent years, Ryan has watched the Winter Carnival Torchlight Parade from the warmth of the downtown St. Paul skyways. Barrett always salutes her with a fiery blast from a hot air balloon burner basket in the parade.
So, all this time later, should the Vulcans have another mascot?
“Only if she can twirl a fire baton,” Ryan says.
“There’s only one Kitty,” Tom adds. “How can you repeat history?”
About the Vulcans
According to the Saint Paul Winter Carnival legend, for 10 days in the winter, King Boreas, Queen Aurora, and the four Princes of the Winds take over the capital city to celebrate all things winter.
At the end of the celebration, they are cast out by the Vulcans, who bring an end to the cold and a promise that warm weather will return.
The Vulcans have been part of the 135-year-old Winter Carnival since 1886, when the Fire King was known as Fire King Coal, then Ignius Rex, Fire King Rex, and, since 1916, Vulcan Rex or Vulcanus Rex. Vulcan Rex VI was the first Fire King to have a Krewe run with him—the first Krewe to ride a firetruck officially, the first Krewe to bestow the “mark” (Vulcans used to smear the greasepaint from their faces on carnivalgoers), and the first Krewe to wear a running suit, cape, helmet, and goggles.
The Vulcans were known for some rowdy, sometimes inappropriate activities in the past, but the Krewe has been on good behavior in recent years. That greasepaint smudge is now a V drawn on Carnival visitors with their permission. The 1932 firetruck is still operating.
Kitty Ryan
