John and Ellen (Garvey) Flynn
Great grandparents John Flynn (1850-1920s) and Ellen Garvey Flynn (1849-1915) appear to have lived their entire lives in the Town of Erin in Washington County, Wisconsin. They were both children of Irish immigrants who had helped to establish an Irish, Catholic farming community in Erin in the 1840s.
John Flynn and Ellen Garvey married in the late-1870s. Although two separate family histories report their wedding as having taken place in 1887, I revise the historical record here in order to protect the impeccable reputations of John and Ellen and four of their kids who were born prior to 1887, including our Grandma Shinners!
John and Ellen Flynn lived on farm land first settled by John's family at the foot of Holy Hill. During their working lives, they would help to expand this farm into the 760-acre "Flynn Homestead" by the early-1890s. However, life was not all work. From 1878 to 1888, they would have six children named Mary, Ellen, Barbara, Elizabeth, Michael, and John. Elizabeth, born in 1883, would become our Grandma Shinners. (See picture below)
Ellen Garvey Flynn died in 1915, and John Flynn lived with his daughter Mary and her husband, Jacob Kohler, in Erin until John's own death in the 1920s.
These dates suggest that our mom would have had no opportunity to know her grandmother, and little opportunity to know her grandfather, on this side of her family tree.
Standing (L-R): Ellen, Mary, John, Michael, Elizabeth, Barbara
Seated: John Flynn and Ellen Garvey Flynn * 1850 US Census