Catharine Ryan was born in Galena, Illinois on January 10, 1863, and was the granddaughter of Irish Catholic immigrants.
She then graduated from the Manhattanville Convent of the Sacred Heart in New York City.
In 1896 Katharine visited her brothers in Helena, Montana, where she met and married William Gibbs, a Protestant watchmaker originally from Medford, Massachusetts.
The couple eventually settled in Providence, Rhode Island[2] and had two sons before her husband died in 1909 in a boating accident at the Edgewood Yacht Club in Cranston, Rhode Island near their home.
After her death in 1934, Katharine's youngest son, Gordon Gibbs, served as President and expanded the school to other cities.