Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Wedding Day, February 18, 1950


 My parents were married February 18, 1950 at St. Gertrude Church, in Chicago, Illinois. They were married thirty one years before my Dad died. They had a happy marriage, gracing them with three children. They wanted more children, but that did not happen. My Mom had six miscarriages at various stages of pregnancy, the latest at 24 weeks along. Six little angels in Heaven with them.

They had a lot of good times, and many good friends. Happy Anniversary in Heaven, Mom and Dad!

Lois getting ready for her wedding.



Entering the Church on a snowy morning.

Tom Lynch, Helen Manning Flynn and Emmett Costello

Missy Flynn     

Marcia McGoldrick

                         
Roy Flynn walking Lois down the aisle


St. Gertrude Church
The happy couple
Kissing the bride

Jim McGoldrick giving a toast to Lois and Chuck
Emmett Costello
Patrick McGoldrick, Mary O'Brien McGoldrick, Sarah Henderson O'Reily, don't know who, Lucy Henderson Flynn, Tom Flynn, Anne Gabriel Flynn, Roy Flynn and Helen Manning Flynn

Jim McGoldrick, Emmett Costello and Chuck McGoldrick singing Irish songs.

Lois and Chuck with Nelle and Roy Flynn

Lois and Chuck with Mary and Patrick McGoldrick

Lois and Chuck with her grandmother, Lucy Flynn

Monday, February 17, 2014

Welcome to my blog



I have been doing Genealogy for about 10 years. My Mom got me started. She was a keeper of the stories, and boy, did she have the stories. She loved to talk…she even talked when no one was listening, or we were only partially listening. Sounds like how my teenagers listen today.  Part of the reason I got so into Genealogy was to have something to talk to my Mom about, and engage her in conversation other than about her aches and pains and how she was loosing her eyesight. It gave us both something else to focus on, and she had some interesting family stories…at least I thought so. People couldn’t believe her age, because she was so spunky!!

                Mom said she started collecting family info when she was little. I did the same in a way, cataloging things in my mind, and on paper. Luckily, she wrote a lot down, and did a lot of research later on. She started putting it all on the computer in the mid 1990’s using Personal Ancestral File, or PAF. She submitted info to One World Tree. When she started losing her eyesight, I took over.

                We lost Mom on October 10th, 2011. She was 93 years young, and lived a very full life.  At the end, she had a series of strokes that took her ability to communicate away. She could talk, but it wasn’t meaningful conversation, and while they sometimes were complete sentences, they often didn’t make sense. She refused to eat much, because she didn’t want to be the way she was, and didn’t want to be in a nursing home. She got weaker, and lost her ability to walk due to the weakness, and losing muscle strength. A vicious circle.  
Lois Jane Flynn, about 9 years old

                I miss being able to pick up the phone and talk to her, or to answer her phone calls, even if it was to explain how to use the TV remote for the 100th time! Lately I have been making some discoveries in our Family History, and each time, my immediate thought was I wanted to share it with Mom. I would usually do that, call her and tell her my latest discovery. Now that I can’t do that, I have decided to write about it. It is my way of telling Mom my discoveries. I think she would like that!