Charles "Dinty" Flynn 1917 - 1962

Dinty is our grandfather Francis Flynn's youngest brother.  He's the one about whom I knew the least until I got the coveted, long awaited email alert that Family Tree DNA had found us a new cousin.  As a result of Chris allowing me to submit his DNA for the Ryan surname study, we have made contact with his daughter Peggy Curry.

Charles was the only one of the Flynn boys to be born in New York State (probably in Olean).  I'm not sure what brought the family to Olean from Emporium PA, but I suspect it was related to father Patrick Flynn's job as an engineer with the Pennsylvania Railroad.

It appears Dinty played high school football: from the Olean Times Herald Sept 27 1935:

He enlisted and was married in 1942 to Julie Gorton also of Olean.  They had 6 children, 5 girls and one boy just like my own siblings!  Margaret (Peggy) tells me she is the second oldest of these.  She is married with 2 grown sons and lives in Quincy Massachusetts.  I am hoping to meet up with her perhaps in October while we are in Gloucester.

When I was looking through my Flynn information, I realized that, not only do I have a letter from Peggy from many years ago, but that we also have met.  In 1995, we took a memorable trip to Boston with niece Jessica and were able to spend some time with Sharon Flynn and her sister Patty (John's daughter's--Uncle 4-5 to us) and Peggy.  The trip was memorable because it was the weekend of the Oklahoma City bombings and everyone was on high alert and very afraid.  So our visits to popular Boston tourist attractions were accompanied by the site of armed security  and fear.

Charles died a young man in 1962.  I never had the chance to meet Julie, although our grandmother strongly encouraged me to contact her.  By the time I did so, Julie had passed as well.  But I'm very tickled that DNA has made this connection again for us.  Who knows what the future holds?