T.R. Farms, Ryan Iowa

James Edward Supple left Cork, Ireland at the age of 18 for Boston. He then made his way west, where he had relatives in Chicago, IL and eventually settled in eastern Iowa. In 1885, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. In order to start farming James borrowed $10 and a horse. James and his wife Mary Ann, purchased the home farm in 1896 and had 5 children. They raised purebred Poland China hogs, Belgian Stud horses, and crops on the farm. There was even a sale pavilion on the farm for the hogs, where in the early 1940’s they had two $10,000 sales. James and Mary Ann’s youngest daughter, Anna E. Supple adopted a 3-month-old daughter, Rose Ann through the Catholic Charities in Dubuque in 1937. To this day she is the only child to have ever been adopted to a single parent through the Catholic Charities in Dubuque. In 1957, Rose Ann married her high school sweetheart Thomas J. Reilly. They moved to the home farm in 1959, where they raised 8 children: Tim, Lynne, Terry, Ted, Tom Jr., Tully, Laina, and Leah. Terry Ryan currently lives on the home farm, and the farm is run by T.R. Farms which included Terry and his late wife Lynne (Reilly) Ryan and Tom Jr. along with Terry and Lynne’s sons Brendan and Bob. The original farm started with 80 acres and now consists of roughly 1,850 acres where corn, soybeans, and hogs are raised.

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Corn to Whiskey