Ryan's first husband, Walter Kenneth Wayne (whom she married in Fairbanks, Alaska in 1949), died in a plane crash, in a plane he was piloting in January 1951 while Fran was pregnant with their first and only child. She would give birth to their son, Chris, in April 1951.
She remarried in January 1953 to Howard Schafer, who, bizarrely, would also perish in a plane crash in Oregon in May 1953. He had been piloting the plane. The wreckage of Howard's plane would not be discovered until 15 years later in November 1968. The remains of Schafer and his passengers were never found. All that was found at the crash site was a woman's shoe, 4 combs, and 2 sets of eyeglasses.
