![]() A woman who owned a German deli in her neighborhood was a U.S. Rations were slim during the war so baking and sending cookies to soldiers sometimes was difficult but she was determined. After her brother passed away, his wife gave her the nominating photograph, which is shown with this article.įor nine months during the war, the family didn’t know where her brother was or how he was. “My sister has always been my best girl and she always will be,” Flynn said he told them to no avail. He told them he had a couple of girlfriends he couldn’t choose between. “They said your best girl,” she noted, using the words of her brother. “I won first place” but then was disqualified because the mascot was required to be a crew member’s girlfriend. She was sunbathing on Rockaway Beach, in N.Y. Flynn, a usually reserved “Victorian” lady was wearing a two-piece bathing suit, not her usual one-piece, but hardly considered scandalous in this day. Her brother, a sub crew member, took a picture of her at the beach and unbeknownst to her submitted her as a possible candidate. The sailors wanted a mascot because Betty Grable, a pinup girl who was photographed from behind looking seductively over her shoulder while wearing a bathing suit, was chosen for another group of service members. It was her job to take care of the bookkeeping while taking care of the children.įlynn also lived through WWII and was almost named mascot for the crew of a U.S. “One time I had five businesses,” she said. In North Carolina, the couple owned a skating rink, a gas station, and a small grocery store. It is now a well-known boat and tackle shop and motel. They once owned the Edgewood Motel, just a couple of miles from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. The couple was entrepreneurs that tried every type of business. She moved to the Eastern Shore in 1980 in a quest to live halfway between her homeland in New York and her husband’s in North Carolina. She has 17 grandchildren, 24 great-grandchildren, and a great-great-grandchild. Flynn also has two sons, 67 and 55 (the tumor), and an adopted daughter. Now Flynn’s daughter, 70, lives 30 feet from Flynn’s house with her husband. Berman lived to be the same age Flynn is now and was cared for by Flynn for many years. Flynn married at 20 and was with her husband for 63 years until he died 10 years ago. Of course, the other kids just referred to him as “the tumor.”īerman, Flynn’s mother, married at 15 and was only 16 years older than her daughter. When she found out she was pregnant she knew the child was a gift from God. She explained that she was postmenopausal with her last child and it was thought at first that she had a tumor. There are things that have happened that I don’t know how they happened except for the will of God.” ![]() He is always with you.”Īfter that, “I never felt alone,” Flynn said. The priest told her, “You know you have a father in heaven who will always be there for you. “These words are just so in my head,” she said. A young priest was there and spoke to her and she wound up telling him about the family’s troubles. A devoted Catholic, she stopped at church to pray for her father after one of his episodes. When Flynn was six, she said, an experience marked her life. ![]() Her mother, Genevieve “Virginia” Berman, cleaned houses for a living while the kids were in school. It was about the start of the Great Depression when food was scarce. The four of them left home and landed in a three-room apartment. Her life was also uncertain in those early days because she, her mother and her two siblings were often abused by her alcoholic father. She has survived a lot in her decades, and like at her start, she has remained “small.” When Flynn was five, a doctor mistook her for a toddler, and at 14, fellow high school students directed her to kindergarten. Then they realized I was just as happy as a lark. “The first thing you hear is ‘Weeeeeeee!’” she said. Now at almost 93, her life continues to be a constant adventure.įor her 90th birthday, Flynn, of Nelsonia, and her daughter-in-law went hang gliding “on the sneak” so her children wouldn’t try to dissuade the escapade.Īs the plane took off, she didn’t know the operation was recording her response. She was “teenie weenie” and blue and needed the help. ![]() Jessie Flynn, of Nelsonia, now at 92, and pictured at 19 during WWII when her brother submitted her photo as a nomination for her to be mascot of his submarine.īy Linda Cicoira - Her grandmother emptied whiskey bottles and filled them with hot water for a homemade dresser drawer incubator when Jessie Flynn was born in her parents’ bedroom on April 30, 1926. ![]()
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