Bangor and Ellsworth
Dorothy Elizabeth “Betty” Flanagan, 90, died Friday, Feb. 3, 2012 at Westgate Manor, Bangor.
She was born on Feb. 6, 1921, a Bangor native, the daughter of Joseph and Marion (O’Hara) Albert. She married Joseph F. Flanagan, also of Bangor, in 1943 and traveled with him and four children to Barcelona, Spain in 1961 where she gave birth to a son, Christopher, and managed the household while her husband represented Monsanto Co. as technical director for a joint venture with a Spanish chemical company.
From 1976 to 1978 Mr. and Mrs. Flanagan also lived in London and Yarm, England, where he was a senior engineer for Monsanto International. While in England, she traveled to France for a Cordon Bleu cooking course and immersed herself in English culture, enjoying Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee and collecting character mugs and horse brasses.
He graduated from Bangor’s John Bapst High School in 1939 and she in 1938 and both attended the University of Maine-Orono. Following Mr. Flanagan’s graduation and their marriage, he was inducted into the U.S. Army. While he was in training, the couple lived in Baltimore, Md. and Springfield, Mass., where their oldest daughter, Mary Jean, was born in 1944.
The following year, Lt. Flanagan was stationed in Germany and Mrs. Flanagan moved back to Bangor. After his release from active duty in 1946 and following the birth of their son, John, he joined Monsanto in Chicopee, Mass. In 1952, the couple bought a house built in 1756 on 52 acres of farmland in Belchertown, Mass. While Mr. Flanagan spent weekends renovating the old house, Mrs. Flanagan delivered two more daughters, Jane and Elizabeth.
Vacations were invariably trips to Maine in a station wagon loaded with kids and camping gear for two weeks at Lucerne or Sebec Lake, Camden Hills or Branch Pond and visits with family in Bangor. Once the younger girls were in school, Mrs. Flanagan took a job working with the developmentally disabled at the Belchertown State School.
After the adventure in Barcelona, the family relocated to St. Louis, Mo. in 1965, where Mrs. Flanagan temporarily transferred her allegiance from the Red Sox to the Cardinals and worked as a part-time librarian and full-time homemaker. Throughout her life, she was also an avid crossword puzzle solver and expert bridge player.
Mrs. Flanagan found and purchased an old colonial home in Orrington in 1977. It was to be Mr. Flanagan’s retirement project, a plan cut short by his death from lung cancer in 1978. Undeterred, Mrs. Flanagan organized the restoration of the home herself and resided there until all her children had married and moved elsewhere.
In 1989, she moved to live in downtown Bangor. Her Franklin Street overlooked Kenduskeag Stream and was conveniently close to Bangor Public Library, as she was an avid reader of mysteries and detective novels. She spent summers at her cottage on Branch Pond, where she hooked rugs, volunteered for the annual loon count, welcomed her daughters, sons, their spouses and children, friends and cousins and led excursions to Bar Harbor, Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound and Jordan’s Snack Bar.
In 2002, she relocated to Ellsworth and in 2006 to Sunbury Village in Bangor, where she was an active member of the retirement community.
She is survived by: daughters, Mary Jean Foss and husband Donald, of Charlottesville, Va., Jane Birckhead, of Ellsworth and Elizabeth Young and her husband Edward, of Portsmouth, N.H.; sons John Flanagan and his wife Mary Fastenau of Honolulu and Christopher Flanagan and his wife Terry, of Murfreesboro, Tenn.; grandchildren Jennifer Yommer, Martha Foss, Joseph and Diana Birckhead, Edward, John, Jolieke and Natalie Young, and Paige and Haley Flanagan; great-grandson Marshall Yommer. She was predeceased by, sisters, Rosemary Hayes and Barbara Perry, brother, Joseph Albert, and son-in-law, George Birckhead.
Friends are invited to call 2 to 4 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 6, at Jordan-Fernald, 113 Franklin St., Ellsworth. A Mass of Christen Burial will be held 11 a.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 7, at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, 768 Ohio St., Bangor with Father Timothy Nadeau as Celebrant. Interment will be at Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, Bangor.
Condolences may be expressed at www.jordanfernald.com