History of our Family Reunions

Family Reunions
1975 – 2010
written by May (Mary) Flynn

1) 1975 - While Wallis (Mont) Hurley was serving the Methodist Church at Wakulla – Woodville, Florida, they were planning a family get together for a weekend in 1975. Lori (better known in our family as Aunt swampy) decided it would be fun if our family, The Flynn Family, could come too. She wrote to us and the plans were expanded. We were living in Atlanta, Georgia, at that time and agreed that it would indeed be lots of fun. It was such a success, we all had a wonderful time and it was decided that we would have to plan another family get together and get the Ott Family to join us to make it a real family reunion.

2) 1978 – Lake Marion, South Carolina. The Otts decided that was a great idea also. So it was decided we would have our first real reunion at Lake Marion, South Carolina, over the 4th of July weekend in 1978. It was everything we expected, with two exceptions; the first was the “bumper to bumper traffic” for the Ott family driving down from Baltimore, Maryland, which made them hours later arriving than expected; and the second was that shortly after they arrived, Adel Duitscher (Grace and Buddy’s oldest Granddaughter) was sick and soon broke out with chicken pox and had to be isolated from the other children. I’m sure she doesn’t remember it as the wonderful happy reunion the rest of us experienced.

3) 1981 – Newport, Tennessee. To avoid the traffic jam which was experienced over the 4th of July weekend, we decided the next reunions would be on the last weekend in July so we could celebrate Grandmother’s and Aunt Grace’s birthdays which were on July 29th and 30th. It was also decided that the three family groups (Ott’s, Hurley’s, and Flynn’s) would take turns being responsible for the reunions. Such as finding the place, making reservations, and being responsible for other planning.

4) 1983 - Cherokee, North Carolina. This was a nice campground with lots of places to go and things to do, but the one special thing about this reunion was that Thelma and Herschel Primm along with Pernie and Gilbert Woodend were able to visit with us while we were there. Thelma and Pernie were the two girls who became members of the Hurley family when they entered High School and remained with us until they married.

5) 1985 - Jamestown, Virginia. This was, of course, right next to Williamsburg, so we had lots of things to do and see in the area. It was the one where we had much more rain than we really wanted. The management of the campground had a storage building; he let us use this building to have our reunion dinner in, but we had to clean it out, and wade through a rain made lake to get into it. But, we were together and that made it all fun. We also had some visitors at this reunion. Longtime friends of the Hurley family, Mary Reville and her husband, Mary was the daughter of “Aunt Kitty” who was an attendant at the wedding of Granddad and Grandmother Hurley on May 31, 1916, they came from Norfolk, VA, to have dinner with us. It was a bright spot during this reunion, in that storage room on a rainy afternoon.

6) 1987 – Helen, Georgia. Helen is always a fun place to visit. It is a small town in the North Georgia Mountains that has been remodeled to look like a Swiss town in the Alps. You could spend several days there and still not see all of the lovely little shops, restaurants, outlet malls, etc.

7) 1988 - Simpsonwood, Conference and Retreat Center, Norcross, Georgia.
This location and date was chosen because our Flynn reunion was being held in the same year so we wanted to change it to the off years. Also, Grandmother was living with us at that time and was not able to travel. Therefore, we decided to have it close to where we lived in hopes the attendees could at least come see her. However, it didn’t turn out that way; she died just a few weeks before the reunion. It was a lovely place to have a reunion. As it says in the title, it is a retreat center located just outside of Atlanta in a lovely wooded area.

8) 1990 – Eldersburg, Maryland, this was, at that time, Butch and Dollye Ott’s home. This was something new for us, to have the reunion at someone’s home. But, they had a lovely home with plenty of room for four or five campers in the back yard. Also it had a very large deck all across the back of the house where we could all eat together. It also was a convenient location, so we had several friends come to visit us for a day.

9) 1992 – Campground on Highway 27 in Central Florida. This campground was convenient to all the attractions in the Orlando area. But, it was a hot week in Florida, so the big swimming pool seemed to be the main attraction of this reunion.

10) 1994 - Unicoi Conference and Retreat Center, North Georgia. This was a Conference and Retreat Center which meant it was convenient with rooms, campground and a very nice cafeteria as well as “gathering rooms“ all in one place as well as the Unicoi Springs Campground that two of the Flynn families are members of, located just up the road.

11) 1996 – Salisbury, Maryland. This was, of course, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. This was a very nice place to visit and the home of Dave and Millie Duitscher and Avery and Emily Saulsbury, two of the Ott family daughters. The reunion dinner was held at the College where Dave and Avery both worked for many years.

12) 1998 – St Augustine, Florida. We were staying in an old Motel that was about to be closed, but they were very accommodating. It was an extremely interesting place to visit, as the Oldest City in Florida, it was full of historic places to see. This was a few months before Morgan Flynn was born so we had a fun Baby Shower for Tony and Vicky Flynn.

13) 2000 - Sevierville, Tennessee. This is in the area better known as the Gatlinburg Tourist Area. This is always a great place to visit and we had wonderful accommodations at the Hidden Mountain Resorts in Sevierville, Tennessee. This will always be remembered as the Reunion where Bob Flynn and Linda were married. Several of us stayed at a nearby campground while the rest were housed in a lovely section of 2 bedroom villas. Needless to say, there were lots of places to go and things to do at this reunion.

14) 2002 – Bird-in-Hand near Intercourse, Pennsylvania. This was Amish Country. Those of us with motorhomes stayed in a nearby campground and the others in a motel/hotel in Bird-in-Hand and that was where we had our reunion dinner. I don’t remember too much about this reunion except that while we were there Dee was quite sick and I finally got him to agree to go to the hospital in Lancaster. Since he still wasn’t well enough to drive the motorhome back to Florida, Butch and Dolly helped me drive back home.

15) 2004 – Annapolis, Maryland. We thought this would be like going back home. However, everything had changed so much in the years since we lived in that area we had to really look hard to find anything that looked familiar. We did take a few side trips and went to Cape Loch Haven to see the house that our family had lovingly built so many years ago.

16) 2006 – Tampa, Florida. Near the end of 2005 Dee’s Parkinson disease had reached the point that I could not take care of him at home any longer. We were fortunate to be able to get him into the Veteran’s Administration Hospital’s long-term care unit called “Haley’s Cove”, which is located just a few blocks from where we were living. It was decided to have the reunion in Tampa so those who came would be able to go see him while there. There are many places to go and things to do in the Tampa area.

17) 2008 – Tampa, Florida. The same thinking carried over to the next reunion.

18) 2010 – Tampa, Florida. As the saying goes – “Three strikes and you’re out!”

We have decided that this isn’t helping our reunions. Since it is our Flynn family’s turn to make the arrangements for reunion #19, we are looking for a different location to go to in 2012.

My Story - a step back in history

Written by Mary L. Flynn (known to us as May) in 2011 who now lives in Tampa, FL.

I was born in Sibley Hospital, Washington, D.C. on June 13, 1923. My parents were Lawrence Leroy Hurley and Grace Louise (Thomson) Hurley. I had one sister, Grace Mildred, six years older and one brother, Wallis Montgomery, four years older. They were living in Hyattsville, Maryland at the time. Our family also included my mother’s father, Alfred Thomson (Papa), and her sister, Mildred Ross Thomson (Auntie).

While I was two years old, we moved to a house on top of a red clay hill known to be the highest point in 20 miles around. It later became known as “Hurley Hill”. The house we moved into was built before the Civil War and had not been inhabited for many years. That is, not by humans. The neighbors in the town of Beltsville, Md. informed us that it was definitely inhabited by many ghosts. After we moved in it didn’t take long to establish that the “ghosts” were: bats in the four chimneys, snakes, and many other critters who had found a nice dry place to make their homes. Needless to say, being only two years old, I was shielded from the trauma experienced by the other females in the family.

The main thing that I really remember about that house was the fact that I could lie in my bed and look outside through the cracks in the wall, and the fact that it was awfully cold in the winters. However, when the temperature got down near the zero mark we were allowed to roll up our covers and crowd into my Grandfather and Brother’s Bedroom over the kitchen, where a fire was kept going in the big old stove all night long.

There were many things that I do remember, and many more that I know were in my memory after being reminded of them by other family members. I remember standing in my crib and calling mother for her to come get me up and dressed after the other family members had had their breakfast and had gone on their way to their daily schedule of school and work. Another early memory I recall was that in the morning during the winter I would kneel on a window box in a corner of the kitchen watching mother hang the wash on the line, and each piece would freeze in the strangest shape as she pinned it to the clothes line.

We had a vegetable garden in back of the house, which my Grandfather tended. One day he was planting various vegetables and he called to me and told me, “You are just 3 feet tall and I need you to lie down after each time I plant one of these plants, so I will know just where to put the next one”. Oh, I felt so important; I was really helping Papa with his work. We all loved Papa so much; he was always trying to help all of us feel good about ourselves.

Another incident that I remember clearly, but I don’t remember if I was actually taking part in it, or just watching my brother. He had learned that if he would put an apple, or other tasty tidbit, on the end of a long stick, and hold it over a pig’s head as he jumped on its back, he could ride the pig all over the farm. I guess I was just watching, because my brother was the one who got the spanking.

As I got older, I was able to recall more things we enjoyed doing on the top of “Hurley Hill”. We had many fruit trees: very tall cherry trees that towered over the top of the house, as well as quite a few shorter ones around the house. We had pear trees, apple trees, one persimmon tree, and especially one sweet dark red cherry tree. However, the big cherry tree harvest was the most exciting event to me. There were a half dozen of those tall trees, and folks from all over the community came with their buckets and ladders, and climbed all over those trees. My only problem was that I wasn’t allowed to climb up in the trees with them, and I wanted so much to be up there with everyone else. Of course, I did finally grow up enough to be part of the pickers, but, somehow it didn’t seem like as much fun as I thought it would be.

During the ten years we lived on “Hurley Hill,” twice we had a National Geographic Survey Team come, and build a 100 foot tower right over a stone marker in our side yard to update the survey of our nation’s shoreline. It seems our eastern shoreline is receding and this was the way they were able to keep track of how much land was being washed away year by year. (Now this is done by aerial photography.)

This also brings to mind that there was another event that happened twice in the 10 years we lived there - we were surrounded by a forest fire. It was really frightening to stand in our front yard, and see the fire getting closer all the time, as well as see the adults who were beating the flames as they would get to the edge of the lawn. The fire fighters eventually won out. The ones who were there helping beat the fire out said the house was saved because we had a large expanse of green lawn around it.

As I mentioned earlier, the hill we lived on was a red clay hill. Do you know what a red clay hill does when it becomes very wet? It turns into a very big sliding board. It would freeze in the winter, but when it thawed it would be almost impossible to travel on. My mother would never leave home in the spring without having sand bags and shovels in the car. One morning, on her way back from taking us to school, she found a bread truck stuck on the hill. She got out her equipment, and with her help the Bread Man was able to go on his way. Of course, he insisted he pay for her help, but she refused. Somehow he found out when her birthday was, and that we were at our cottage in Sylvan Shores near Annapolis, for the summer. Needless to say, we were all very surprised when he showed up with a beautiful, big Birthday Cake for her on the 29th of July.

I was excited when I heard that a family had moved in next door to us that had a daughter my age. Of course this was out in the country, so next door meant at least a mile down the road from us. That didn’t seem too far to walk on a Saturday morning, especially when I knew that my friend’s mother did her weeks baking on Saturday mornings and always sliced a loaf of Cinnamon-raisin bread while it was still hot.

While we were living on the hill our family increased by 2; Thelma and Pernie Marcus moved in with us. The sisters were in need of a place to stay while they finished high school and my parents invited them to join our family. During this time my mother and dad were active in the 4-H Club in Beltsville. In addition to all the usual activities of the club, they also had a very active Chorus and sang all over the County, even on the radio’s “Farm and Home Hour” program, at least once each year. This was one activity we all enjoyed, especially the year when Arthur Godfrey was the young redheaded announcer, and he had such fun teasing and flirting with the girls.

I was only 10 or 11 during this time and too young to officially join the 4-H Club. So I was not a member, but was always at the meetings and rehearsals since they were held after school. This was where I first learned to sing the alto part, since they were usually in need of more altos.

Such were the pleasures of living in the country. However, when I was 12 years old, Dad received a notice from the government saying they were buying our 54 acres, as well as many of the neighbor’s homes and land, to build a town they would call “Greenbelt.” We were given 90 days to find a place to live and move. We went back to Hyattsville to a house on Oakwood Road, which was later renamed 40^th Avenue. I often wonder how in the world we managed in that 3 bedroom and 1 bath house with 4 adults, 4 teenagers, and me.

The Hurleys, a couple of generations ago

Written in 2011 by Mary L. Flynn (known to most of us as May) who now lives in Tampa, FL.





Mr. Lawrence Leroy Hurley 1895 – 1969

Mrs. Grace Louise (Thomson) Hurley 1893 - 1988

I have always been grateful that I had the parents I did. My Maternal Grandmother died while my Mother was a teenager, and Mom had, not only to take over the household duties, but to take care of her father and her younger sister, who had never been well. They both were part of our family until they died.

My Mother and father were trained musicians, and taught all of us to appreciate and love music. They were always active in Church and Sunday School, as well as community affairs. The Methodist Church in Beltsville had a balcony along the side of the sanctuary where the organ and choir was located. My earliest memories of that church were lying on the floor, with my Sunday school papers from the pre-school class I attended, spread in front of me. My hands were full of the wonderful colored pens that Daddy used in his work and let me use, only on Sunday, if I would be quiet and very careful with them. Since Daddy played the organ and Mother directed the choir, and I had all the choir members watching me, I knew I had to be really quiet.

When we moved to Hyattsville during the year I was 12, they continued with all their outside activities. Mother was the teacher for the teenage girls’ Sunday School class and Dad was the substitute organist. He played at the Sunday evening services. One Sunday evening as he was standing on the back steps of the church office wing, a young man came up and introduced himself to Dad. He was the younger brother of a church member who we all knew and loved. Dad came down to the basement, motioned for me to come out of the Epworth League meeting, and introduced him to me. Dad told me to introduce him to the rest of the teenagers after the meeting. I did this, not knowing this was the young man I would marry in a couple of years.

Many years later the folks decided to buy a lot on the South River near Annapolis and build a home. This took several years, as most of the work was done by family members in their spare time. The three of us, my sister, brother, and me, had all married and started our families. We didn’t live close to our parents, but we had many wonderful “family fun times” during the building of this house. One of the “fourth of July” weekends during this time, we all planned to get together there when the basement was the only part of it that was completely finished. As you would expect, it was quite crowded. Later, my sister, Grace and I were deciding where our children would sleep, but we were short one place. My sister said, “Butch has a date, and will be very late getting in, and he asked me to leave him a note in the middle of the table, telling him where he was to sleep.” So she did, the note said “right here!”

By the time Dad retired our family was even more scattered, with my brother and his family living in Northwest Florida, my sister and her family still in Baltimore, Maryland, and my family in Atlanta, Georgia. Dad started talking about wanting to move to Florida. However, it took him several years to convince Mother she wanted to head south; she had too many good friends in the Baltimore-Washington area. It took several more years of traveling, and deciding in which area of Florida they wanted to live. Meanwhile, they celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary at the home the family had so lovingly built on the South River. The whole family had a chance to find out just how many good friends Mom and Dad had in that area. It was estimated there were at least 350 people who had come from miles around to help them celebrate. Even a dear friend of many years, who was my first grade school teacher, made the trip. My children were amazed that someone old enough to have been my first grade teacher could come all that way for a party.

It wasn’t long before the folks were headed south. They had decided to settle in Cape Coral. Dad said it would have to be -- “below the frost line” -- wherever that was. It wasn’t long before they were just as active in the First United Methodist Church, and busy with other activities in the community, and found they had many good friends there too. They even discovered several of the friends they had enjoyed back home had also moved to that area.

Our youngest daughter, Rebecca and her boyfriend, decided they would be married on December 27, 1969. Mom and Dad drove from Cape Coral to Atlanta on the 22^nd. He planned to be there a few days early so he could practice on the church organ, since he was expected to play for the wedding, as he had done for all the other grandchildren who had married by this time. He came back very upset, and told us he just couldn’t get his fingers to do what he wanted them to do. We called and made an appointment for him to see the doctor the next day. The doctor said that he had had a small heart attack and he wanted to put him into the hospital, but they didn’t have an available room. So we could take him home, but he would have to forget about playing the organ, and stay in bed. The doctor then made an appointment to meet him in the hospital emergency room the day after Christmas. At that time he would decide if he would even be able to go to the wedding. The next day my husband took him to the emergency room and while he was there, with the doctor in attendance, Dad had a massive heart attack and died.

As church Families do, our church family was there for us. The only thing that was cancelled was the Bridesmaid’s Luncheon, which was scheduled for noon that day. We all insisted that Rebecca and John go on with the wedding and honeymoon, while the rest of us packed up and headed to Maryland for the funeral. This was all accomplished with much help from our friends and neighbors. After we returned from Maryland, my husband took the next week off and drove Mother back to Florida and took care of all the paperwork that was required. Mother said she wanted to remain in her home in Cape Coral by herself, so we all went down to see her as often as we could during the 13 years she lived there alone.

On June 26, 1982, I retired from my position with the Center for Disease Control, and we moved Mother to Atlanta so I could take care of her. Then on July 10, 1988, the Lord called her and she passed away in her sleep just 10 days before her 95^th birthday.